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Westward expansion, the 19th‑century movement of settlers into the American West, began with the Louisiana Purchase and was fueled by the Gold Rush, the Oregon Trail and a belief in "manifest...
Westward movement, the populating by Europeans of the land within the continental boundaries of the mainland United States, a process that began shortly after the first colonial settlements were established along the Atlantic coast. Read more about its history and outcome.
Expansion of the United States moved steadily westward from the late 18th to the mid 19th centuries. This territorial movement displaced most of the Native American peoples who lived in those lands for thousands of years before the arrival of European colonists.
American artists explored this new territory and chronicled the settlement of the frontier: landscapes extolling the nation's geographic wonders from Niagara Falls to the Grand Canyon drove and documented westward expansion.
During the 19th Century, more than 1.6 million square kilometers (a million square miles) of land west of the Mississippi River was acquired by the United States federal government. This led to a widespread migration west, referred to as Westward Expansion.
In less than a century, westward expansion stretched the United States from a handful of states along the Eastern Seaboard all the way to the Pacific. The acquisition of Hawaii and Alaska in the mid-19th century assured westward expansion would continue into the 20th century.
Explore the territorial and population changes in the United States between 1790 and 1850 and consider the factors and resources that shaped and enabled westward expansion. After 1787, the newly established United States began to take an active part in the exploration of North America.