The signing of the United States Declaration of Independence occurred (primarily) on August 2, 1776 at the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The 56 delegates to the Second Continental Congress represented the 13 former colonies which had declared themselves the "United States of America," and they endorsed the Declaration of Independence which the Congress had approved on July 4, 1776. The Declaration proclaimed that the Thirteen Colonies then at war with Great Britain were now sovereign states and thus no longer a part of the British Empire. The signers’ names are grouped by state, with the exception of President of the Continental Congress John Hancock; the states are arranged geographically from north to south.
The final draft of the Declaration was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, the date of its signing has long been disputed. Most historians have concluded that it was signed on August 2, 1776, nearly a month after its adoption, and not on July 4 as is commonly believed.