presidents of the United States

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At a glance: presidents of the United States

Gilbert Stuart: portrait of George Washington

Asher B. Durand: portrait of James Madison

presidents of the United States

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Aug 12, 2024 • Article History

In contrast to many countries with parliamentary forms of government, where the office of president, or head of state, is mainly ceremonial, in the United States the president is vested with great authority and is arguably the most powerful elected official in the world. The U.S. president is the head of the executive branch of the country’s federal government. The powers and responsibilities of the office, as defined in Article II of the U.S. Constitution, include appointing high-ranking officials of executive agencies and departments and members of the federal judiciary (subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate), serving as commander in chief of the U.S. military, making treaties with foreign governments, and signing or vetoing legislation passed by Congress.

The president is elected to a four-year term via an electoral college system. Since the Twenty-second Amendment was adopted in 1951, the American presidency has been limited to a maximum of two terms.

Click on a president below to learn more about each presidency through an interactive timeline. The table below the graphic provides a list of presidents of the United States, their birthplaces, political parties, and terms of office.

Presidents of the United States
	no.	president	birthplace	political party	term
*Died in office.
**Resigned from office.
	1	George Washington	Virginia	Federalist	1789–97
	2	John Adams	Massachusetts	Federalist	1797–1801
	3	Thomas Jefferson	Virginia	Democratic-Republican	1801–09
	4	James Madison	Virginia	Democratic-Republican	1809–17
	5	James Monroe	Virginia	Democratic-Republican	1817–25
	6	John Quincy Adams	Massachusetts	National Republican	1825–29
	7	Andrew Jackson	South Carolina	Democratic	1829–37
	8	Martin Van Buren	New York	Democratic	1837–41
	9	William Henry Harrison	Virginia	Whig	1841*
	10	John Tyler	Virginia	Whig	1841–45
	11	James K. Polk	North Carolina	Democratic	1845–49
	12	Zachary Taylor	Virginia	Whig	1849–50*
	13	Millard Fillmore	New York	Whig	1850–53
	14	Franklin Pierce	New Hampshire	Democratic	1853–57
	15	James Buchanan	Pennsylvania	Democratic	1857–61
	16	Abraham Lincoln	Kentucky	Republican	1861–65*
	17	Andrew Johnson	North Carolina	Democratic (Union)	1865–69
	18	Ulysses S. Grant	Ohio	Republican	1869–77
	19	Rutherford B. Hayes	Ohio	Republican	1877–81
	20	James A. Garfield	Ohio	Republican	1881*
	21	Chester A. Arthur	Vermont	Republican	1881–85
	22	Grover Cleveland	New Jersey	Democratic	1885–89
	23	Benjamin Harrison	Ohio	Republican	1889–93
	24	Grover Cleveland	New Jersey	Democratic	1893–97
	25	William McKinley	Ohio	Republican	1897–1901*
	26	Theodore Roosevelt	New York	Republican	1901–09
	27	William Howard Taft	Ohio	Republican	1909–13
	28	Woodrow Wilson	Virginia	Democratic	1913–21
	29	Warren G. Harding	Ohio	Republican	1921–23*
	30	Calvin Coolidge	Vermont	Republican	1923–29
	31	Herbert Hoover	Iowa	Republican	1929–33
	32	Franklin D. Roosevelt	New York	Democratic	1933–45*
	33	Harry S. Truman	Missouri	Democratic	1945–53
	34	Dwight D. Eisenhower	Texas	Republican	1953–61
	35	John F. Kennedy	Massachusetts	Democratic	1961–63*
	36	Lyndon B. Johnson	Texas	Democratic	1963–69
	37	Richard M. Nixon	California	Republican	1969–74**
	38	Gerald R. Ford	Nebraska	Republican	1974–77
	39	Jimmy Carter	Georgia	Democratic	1977–81
	40	Ronald Reagan	Illinois	Republican	1981–89
	41	George Bush	Massachusetts	Republican	1989–93
	42	Bill Clinton	Arkansas	Democratic	1993–2001
	43	George W. Bush	Connecticut	Republican	2001–09
	44	Barack Obama	Hawaii	Democratic	2009–17
	45	Donald Trump	New York	Republican	2017–21
	46	Joe Biden	Pennsylvania	Democratic	2021–

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Mindy Johnston.