presidents of the United States

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Gilbert Stuart: portrait of George Washington

Asher B. Durand: portrait of James Madison

John Tyler, oil painting by Hart, c. 1841–45; in the Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia, U.S.

presidents of the United States

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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.

The table below lists all of the presidents of the United States.

Presidents of the United States
	no.	president	birthplace	political party	term
*Died in office.
**Resigned from office.
	1	George Washington	Va.	Federalist	1789–97
	2	John Adams	Mass.	Federalist	1797–1801
	3	Thomas Jefferson	Va.	Democratic-Republican	1801–09
	4	James Madison	Va.	Democratic-Republican	1809–17
	5	James Monroe	Va.	Democratic-Republican	1817–25
	6	John Quincy Adams	Mass.	National Republican	1825–29
	7	Andrew Jackson	S.C.	Democratic	1829–37
	8	Martin Van Buren	N.Y.	Democratic	1837–41
	9	William Henry Harrison	Va.	Whig	1841*
	10	John Tyler	Va.	Whig	1841–45
	11	James K. Polk	N.C.	Democratic	1845–49
	12	Zachary Taylor	Va.	Whig	1849–50*
	13	Millard Fillmore	N.Y.	Whig	1850–53
	14	Franklin Pierce	N.H.	Democratic	1853–57
	15	James Buchanan	Pa.	Democratic	1857–61
	16	Abraham Lincoln	Ky.	Republican	1861–65*
	17	Andrew Johnson	N.C.	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	Vt.	Republican	1881–85
	22	Grover Cleveland	N.J.	Democratic	1885–89
	23	Benjamin Harrison	Ohio	Republican	1889–93
	24	Grover Cleveland	N.J.	Democratic	1893–97
	25	William McKinley	Ohio	Republican	1897–1901*
	26	Theodore Roosevelt	N.Y.	Republican	1901–09
	27	William Howard Taft	Ohio	Republican	1909–13
	28	Woodrow Wilson	Va.	Democratic	1913–21
	29	Warren G. Harding	Ohio	Republican	1921–23*
	30	Calvin Coolidge	Vt.	Republican	1923–29
	31	Herbert Hoover	Iowa	Republican	1929–33
	32	Franklin D. Roosevelt	N.Y.	Democratic	1933–45*
	33	Harry S. Truman	Mo.	Democratic	1945–53
	34	Dwight D. Eisenhower	Texas	Republican	1953–61
	35	John F. Kennedy	Mass.	Democratic	1961–63*
	36	Lyndon B. Johnson	Texas	Democratic	1963–69
	37	Richard M. Nixon	Calif.	Republican	1969–74**
	38	Gerald R. Ford	Neb.	Republican	1974–77
	39	Jimmy Carter	Ga.	Democratic	1977–81
	40	Ronald Reagan	Ill.	Republican	1981–89
	41	George Bush	Mass.	Republican	1989–93
	42	Bill Clinton	Ark.	Democratic	1993–2001
	43	George W. Bush	Conn.	Republican	2001–09
	44	Barack Obama	Hawaii	Democratic	2009–17
	45	Donald Trump	N.Y.	Republican	2017–21
	46	Joe Biden	Pa.	Democratic	2021–

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Brian Duignan.