FORTISVEX 20 Star U.S. Flag 5x8 Feet Nylon - Made in USA with Brass Grommets

20 Star U.S. Flag History

The 20 Star American Flag represents a short-lived national star count with an enduring place in American flag history. The design shown here places twenty white stars in a regular grid of four rows of five, above thirteen alternating red and white stripes. Its orderly canton makes the count easy to read and gives this version a different appearance from twenty-star flags whose smaller stars form one large star.

The decisive change came through the Flag Act approved on April 4, 1818. Beginning that July 4, the law prescribed twenty stars and restored the stripe count to thirteen. It also set a rule for the future: each newly admitted state would receive an additional star on the following Independence Day. The legislation gave the flag a way to acknowledge an expanding country while retaining a permanent reference to its founding.

The five additional stars brought the design up to date after the fifteen-star period. They represented Tennessee, admitted June 1, 1796; Ohio, March 1, 1803; Louisiana, April 30, 1812; Indiana, December 11, 1816; and Mississippi, December 10, 1817. All five stars became official together on July 4, 1818. This was a catch-up revision, not a series of annual additions during those earlier years. The National Park Service’s state-admission chronology records that sequence. Looking at those names together reveals why this flag is especially useful in an early national display: its constellation gathers more than twenty years of statehood changes into one revision.

A twenty-star flag was already attracting attention before the law’s July effective date. The Library of Congress records a new flag raised over the Capitol on April 13, 1818, through the efforts of Congressman Peter H. Wendover and naval officer Samuel Chester Reid. That event illustrates the public importance of the redesign. It does not establish that the straight-row pattern sold here was the same as the Capitol flag, and this version should not be identified as the Great Star design associated with Reid.

The twenty-star count was official from July 4, 1818, through July 3, 1819. The next Independence Day brought a star for Illinois. The chronology in the Smithsonian’s Thirteen-Star Flags: Keys to Identification, appendix, places it between the fifteen- and twenty-one-star versions. That brief interval adds to its interpretive interest: the governing rule lasted far longer than the first count created under it. For collectors, classrooms, and historical displays, this design highlights the moment when the Stars and Stripes acquired a practical framework for the nation’s continued growth.

Explore the States Represented in This Flag

• Tennessee history · Shop Tennessee flags
• Ohio history · Shop Ohio flags
• Louisiana history · Shop Louisiana flags
• Shop Indiana flags
• Shop Mississippi flags