Historic regions of the United States

These are historic regions of the United States, meaning regions that were legal entities in the past, or which the average modern American would no longer immediately recognize as a regional description.

Colonial era (before 1776)

The Thirteen Colonies

* Province of New Hampshire
* Province of Massachusetts Bay
* Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
* Connecticut Colony
* Province of New York
* Province of New Jersey
* Province of Pennsylvania
* Delaware Colony
* Province of Maryland
* Colony and Dominion of Virginia
* Province of North Carolina
* Province of South Carolina
* Province of Georgia

Colonial districts other than the original thirteen
* Dominion of New England
* East Jersey
* Indian Reserve (1763)
* Jamestown Settlement
* Massachusetts Bay Colony
* Narragansett Country
* New Haven Colony
* New Netherland
* New Sweden
* Plymouth Colony
* Popham Colony
* Province of Carolina
* Province of Maine
* Roanoke Colony
* West Jersey

Colonies proposed but unrealized or unrecognized
*Transylvania
*Vandalia
*Charlotina
*Mississippi Colony

Regions ceded, annexed or purchased from states or foreign powers

"See also: United States territorial acquisitions, Manifest Destiny"
* Alaska Purchase
* Gadsden Purchase
* Louisiana Purchase, originally Louisiana (New France)
** Great Plains
** Sabine Free State
* Mexican Cession
**Southwest Territories
* Oregon Country
* Red River Basin
* Florida Purchase
** East Florida
** West Florida
* State Cessions
** Illinois Country
** Ohio Country
** Yazoo Lands
* Texas Annexation

Internal land grants, cessions, purchases, districts, claims or settlements

The following are land grants, cessions, purchases, defined districts (official or otherwise) or named settlements made within an area that was already part of the original 13 colonies or a state of the Union or U.S. territory, including major land acquisitions (of varying degrees of legality) from Native Americans that did not involve international treaties or state cessions.
* Arizona Territory (CSA) (Arizona, New Mexico)
* Carver's Tract (Wisconsin)
* Cherokee Strip (Kansas)
* Cumberland District, North Carolina aka District of Miro (Tennessee)
* Department of Alaska
* District of Alaska
* District of Arkansas
* District of Columbia
* District of Kentucky
* District of Louisiana
* District of Maine
* District of West Augusta (Pennsylvania, Virginia)
* Equivalent Lands (Connecticut-Massachusetts)
* Fairfax Grant (Virginia)
* German Coast (Louisiana)
* Gorges Patent (Maine)
* Granville District (North Carolina)
* Honey Lands (disputed tract of land, Iowa-Missouri)
* Jackson Purchase (Kentucky and Tennessee)
* King's College Tract (Vermont)
* Marquette District (Wisconsin)
* Military Tract of 1812 (Illinois, Michigan, Arkansas, Missouri)
* Mobile District
* New Hampshire Grants (Vermont)
* New York Lands (Kansas)
* Pembina Territory (Dakotas, Minnesota)
* Platte Purchase (Missouri)
* Pike's Peak Country (Colorado)
* Saginaw Cession (Michigan)
* Territory of Sagadahock (Maine)
* Trans-Mississippi
* Transylvania Purchase (Kentucky)
* Waldo Patent (Maine)
* Washington District, North Carolina (Tennessee)

Iowa

* Black Hawk Purchase
* Dubuque's Claim
* Giard Grant
* Half-Breed Tract
* Honey Lands (disputed tract of land, Iowa-Missouri)
* Iowa District
* Keokuk's Reserve
* Neutral Ground (Iowa)
* Potawatomi Cession
* Sac and Fox Cession
* Sioux Cession

New York

* Central New York Military Tract (New York)
* The Holland Purchase (New York)
* The Mill Yard Tract (New York)
* The Morris Reserve (New York)
* Macomb's Purchase (New York)
* Phelps and Gorham Purchase (New York)
* The Triangle Tract (New York)
* The Purchase of New Jersey (New York)

Ohio

* Canal Lands
* College Lands
* College Township
* Congress Lands or Congressional Lands (1798-1821)
** Congress Lands North of Old Seven Ranges
** Congress Lands West of Miami River
** Congress Lands East of Scioto River
** North and East of the First Prinicipal Meridian
** South and East of the First Principal Meridian
* Connecticut Western Reserve
* Dolerman's Grant
* Dohrman Tract
* Donation Tract
* Ephraim Kimberly Grant
* Firelands or Sufferers' Lands
* Fort Washington
* French Grant
* Gnadenhutten Tract
* Indian Land Grants (Same as Moravian?)
* Maumee Road Lands
* Michigan Survey or Michigan Meridian Survey or Toledo Tract
* Miami & Erie Canal Lands
* Ministerial Lands
* Moravian Indian Grants
* Ohio & Erie Canal Lands
* Ohio Company of Associates
** Purchase on the Muskingum
* Refugee Tract
* Salem Tract
* Salt Reservations or Salt Lands
* Schoenbrunn Tract
* School Lands
* Seven Ranges or Old Seven Ranges
* Symmes Purchase or Miami Purchase and/or the Land Between the Miamis
* Toledo Strip, object of a nearly bloodless war between Ohio and Michigan
* Turnpike Lands
* Twelve-Mile Square Reservation
* Two-Mile Square Reservation
* United States Military District
* Virginia Military District
* Zane's Tracts or Zane's Grant or Ebenezer Zane Tract

Oklahoma

* Big Pasture
* Cherokee Outlet, or Cherokee Strip
* Cimarron Territory
* Greer County
* Indian Territory
* Neutral Strip, or No Man's Land
* Oklahoma Territory
* State of Sequoyah
* Unassigned Lands

Indian Reserves

* Cheyenne-Arapaho Reserve
* Commanche, Kiowa and Apache Reserve
* Iowa Reserve
* Kaw Reserve
* Kickapoo Reserve
* Osage Reserve
* Ponca and Otoe–Misouria Reserve
* Citizen Potawatomi and Absentee Shawnee Reserve
* Sac and Fox Reserve
* Tonkawa Reserve
* Wichita and Caddo Reserve

Pennsylvania

* Erie Triangle
* Walking Purchase
* Welsh Tract

Former organized territories

The following is a list of organized U.S. territories that have become states, in the order of the date organized.
*Territory Northwest of the River Ohio (1789–1803) became the State of Ohio
*Territory South of the River Ohio (1790–1796) became the State of Tennessee
*Territory of Mississippi (1798–1817)
*Territory of Indiana (1800–1816)split into the Illinois Territory, Michigan Territory, and the state of Indiana.
*Territory of Orleans (1804–1812) became the State of Louisiana
*Territory of Michigan (1805–1837)
*Territory of Louisiana (1805–1812) (preceded by the District of Louisiana) renamed Territory of Missouri (1812–1821)
*Territory of Illinois (1809–1818)
*Territory of Alabama (1817–1819)
*Territory of Arkansaw (1819–1836) became the State of Arkansas
*Territory of Florida (1822–1845)
*Territory of Wisconsin (1836–1848)
*Territory of Iowa (1838–1846)
*Territory of Oregon (1848–1859)
*Territory of Minnesota (1849–1858)
*Territory of New Mexico (1850–1912)
*Territory of Utah (1850–1896)
*Territory of Washington (1853–1889)
*Territory of Kansas (1854–1861)
*Territory of Nebraska (1854–1867)
*Territory of Colorado (1861–1876)
*Territory of Nevada (1861–1864)
*Territory of Dakota (1861–1889) became the State of North Dakota and the State of South Dakota
*Territory of Arizona (1863–1912)
*Territory of Idaho (1863–1890)
*Territory of Montana (1864–1889)
*Territory of Wyoming (1868–1890)
*Territory of Oklahoma (1890–1907) (preceded, in part, by the Indian territory)
*Territory of Hawaii (1898–1959)
*Territory of Alaska (1912–1959) (preceded by the Department of Alaska and the District of Alaska)

Possessions and overseas territories subsequently retroceded

* Panama Canal Zone
* Commonwealth of the Philippines
* Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands
* Ryukyus
* Chamizal
* Rio Rico, Texas (Horcón Tract)

Independent states admitted to the union

*Kingdom of Hawaii later the Republic of Hawaii
*Republic of Texas
*Republic of New Connecticut later the Republic of Vermont
*Republic of California
*Provisional Government of Oregon
*Deseret Territory, unofficially declared independence in 1857 in the Utah War the struggle between Mormon settlers and the U.S. government who dispatched soldiers in the region.

Unrecognized or self-declared entities

* Absaroka
* Kingdom of Beaver Island
* Republic of California
* Kingdom of Callaway
* Territory of Cimarron
* Conch Republic
* Confederate States of America
** Arizona Territory (CSA)
* State of Deseret
* State of Franklin
* Republic of Indian Stream
* State of Jefferson
* Territory of Jefferson
* State of Kanawha
* State of Lincoln
* Republic of Lakotah
* Long Republic
* Republic of Madawaska
* Territory of McDonald
* Nataqua Territory
* Nickajack
* Provisional Government of Oregon
* Great Republic of Rough and Ready
* State of Sequoyah
* Republic of South Carolina
* State of Superior
* Transoconee Republic
* Republic of Vermont
* Republic of West Florida
* State of Westmoreland
* Westsylvania
* Republic of Winston

Native American-related regions

* Comancheria, the Oklahoma Panhandle during the late 1800s.
* Dinétah, named for the Navajo Indian Reservation.
* Lenapehoking, named for the Delaware or Lenilenape Indians.
* Oklahoma as a separate Native American country, especially the Cherokee Nation and four of the Five Civilized Tribes.
* Aztlan, a majority Hispanic/Mexican-American country based in the Southwest U.S. named for the ancestral homeland of the Aztec of Mexico said to originated from the land about 1000 AD, and that land formerly belonged to Spain and Mexico until the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo gave it to the U.S.

Nicknames

*Bible Belt
*Burnt-Over District
*Corn Belt
*Dust Bowl
*Frost Belt
*Grain Belt
*Jello Belt
*Rust Belt
*Snow Belt
*Sun Belt
*Tornado Alley

ee also

* Political divisions of the United States
* United States territory
* List of regions of the United States
* List of U.S. states that were never territories
* European colonization of the Americas
* Reconstruction military districts
* List of former United States counties

External links

* [http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/ar/state/history/terr/chron.txt Chronological List of Territories 1787-1890]
* [http://www.thegreenpapers.com/slg/statehood.phtml Official Name and Status History of the several States and U.S. Territories]
* [http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/maps/cessions/ Indian Land Cessions in the United States, United States Digital Map Archives]
* [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwss-ilc.html LOC: Indian Land Cessions in the United States, 1784-1894, United States Serial Set, Number 4015]
* [http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MAP/terr_hp.html United States Territorial Maps 1775-1920]