13 Original Colonies

Thirteen states, one blank map, five mistakes allowed. This is the founding block of American history rendered as a clicking task, and it exposes the gap between naming the colonies and finding them. A round takes about a minute.

How to play

Press Start, then click states on the map. Each correct colony fills green and advances the Solved counter toward thirteen. A wrong click fills red and spends one of five mistakes. At five mistakes the map lights up every colony you missed in gold and the round ends, so you always see the full answer. Finding all thirteen ends the round immediately with three stars.

Twelve or thirteen found earns three stars, eight or more earns two, four or more earns one. Results and streaks stay in your browser.

Run the coast, do not hunt

The thirteen are a continuous strip along the Atlantic with no gaps, which turns a memory problem into a tracing problem. Start at New Hampshire and work south without skipping: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia. That is exactly thirteen. If your count comes out wrong, you either skipped a small one or clicked something that is not on the list.

The three states that break the strip. Maine, Vermont and West Virginia all touch the block and none of them qualifies. Maine was governed as part of Massachusetts and did not become a separate state until 1820. Vermont was an independent republic and joined in 1791. West Virginia did not exist until it separated from Virginia in 1863. Those three account for most lost mistakes on this map.

Florida is the fourth trap. It sits directly below Georgia, which is the southern end of the strip, and it did not become a state until 1845.

The small targets. Rhode Island is the smallest state in the country and Delaware is a narrow sliver between Maryland and New Jersey. On a phone, zoom before clicking those two rather than after burning a mistake. One more useful marker: Pennsylvania is the only one of the thirteen with no Atlantic shoreline.

The thirteen, in order of ratification

Delaware ratified the Constitution first, which is where its First State nickname comes from. Rhode Island held out the longest.

Their capitals today are Concord, Boston, Providence, Hartford, Albany, Trenton, Harrisburg, Dover, Annapolis, Richmond, Raleigh, Columbia and Atlanta. Only four of those are also the largest city in their state: Boston, Providence, Columbia and Atlanta. The other nine were passed over, which is why Albany, Harrisburg, Annapolis and Trenton catch people out in capitals quizzes.

Keep going

The full history of each colony is in the 13 colonies guide, and the rest of the timeline is laid out in states by statehood year. Related games: