The Thirteen Colonies

They began as thirteen very different worlds strung along the Atlantic coast — Puritan New England, the trade-minded middle colonies, the plantation South — founded across more than a century, from Jamestown in 1607 to Georgia in 1733.

For generations they shared little and squabbled often. It was Britain's taxes and tightening grip that forged them into something new: thirteen colonies that learned to stand together, first in protest, then in open revolution. Their union became the original thirteen states — and the thirteen stripes that still fly on the flag today.

This vintage map traces that beginning: the narrow ribbon of coastline where a scattering of colonies decided to become one people. It is a portrait of exactly where America started.

Printed on 200 gsm matte poster stock and mounted behind shatter-resistant acrylic in a 22 mm deep pine frame, available in black, natural wood or dark wood. The print is fitted into the frame before it ships, so it arrives assembled with hanging hardware in place, ready for a portrait or landscape wall.