Guide · List
The 13 Colonies: A Guide to Each One
The thirteen British colonies that became the United States — grouped by region, with how each was founded.
The United States grew out of thirteen separate British colonies strung along the Atlantic seaboard — founded across more than a century for reasons as different as profit, religious refuge, and military defense. They were never a single project; they were rivals as often as neighbors, and welding them into one nation was the hard work of the Revolution and the Constitution.
This guide covers all thirteen, grouped into the three regions historians use — New England, the Middle Colonies, and the Southern Colonies. Each links to a full account of its founding and its road to statehood.
For what they built together, see the American Revolution timeline and the guide to the Founding Fathers.