How to Memorize the Presidents in Order in Nine Chunks
By Mark Fulton · 2026-09-24 · 11 min read
The fastest way to memorize the presidents in order is to stop treating them as 47 loose names. Split the list into nine historical chunks of four to seven presidencies, learn one or two chunks a day by recalling them rather than reading them, and spend your memory tricks only on the handful of places where names repeat (two Adamses, two Harrisons, two Johnsons, two Roosevelts, two Bushes) and the two presidents who served non-consecutive terms. Drill the list in both directions, number to name and name to number, and a week of short sessions covers the lot.
The list looks like a wall. It isn't. It has shape, it has eras you have already half learned in history class, and its traps are the same ones for everybody. Here is the whole method, chunk by chunk.
Why is the presidents list easier than it looks?
Three things are working in your favour before you start.
You already know about a third of it. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Kennedy, Reagan and every president from the last thirty-odd years are names most people could place roughly in time. The real work is a smaller set of 1800s names that sit between the famous ones.
The order follows history, not the alphabet. Each president hands off to the next, so the list tracks events you can picture: the founding, the drift toward civil war, the war itself, the Gilded Age, the World Wars, the Cold War. A name tied to an era has somewhere to live in your memory. A name in a bare numbered column does not.
The mistakes are predictable. Almost every error falls into one of three buckets: two presidents with the same surname, two neighbouring presidents with similar names, or the numbering jumps caused by a president coming back for a second, separate term. Fix those buckets directly and the rest of the list mostly takes care of itself.
How do you split it into chunks that stick?
Break the list at natural turning points in American history, so each chunk is a story rather than a string. Nine chunks keeps every one small enough to recall in a single breath, and none of them is bigger than seven.
The table below is the whole list, verified against the House of Representatives' numbered list of presidents and vice presidents. Names marked with an asterisk are the collisions covered in the next section. Each chunk gets one hook: either a first-letter sentence or a fact that ties the group together.
| Chunk | Numbers | Presidents | Hook |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. The founders | 1 to 5 | Washington, John Adams *, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe | "Washington's Army Jogged Many Miles" (W, A, J, M, M) |
| 2. The Jackson years | 6 to 10 | John Quincy Adams *, Andrew Jackson *, Van Buren, William Henry Harrison *, Tyler * | "Angry Jays Visit Hungry Tigers" (A, J, V, H, T). Harrison and Tyler ran together, which is why they sit side by side |
| 3. The road to war | 11 to 15 | Polk, Taylor *, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan | "Please Take Five Pencils, Bob" (P, T, F, P, B) |
| 4. War and Reconstruction | 16 to 19 | Lincoln, Andrew Johnson *, Grant, Hayes | Lincoln's vice president, then the war's winning general, then the man who closed out Reconstruction |
| 5. The Gilded Age | 20 to 25 | Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland *, Benjamin Harrison *, Cleveland *, McKinley | Cleveland is the bread, Harrison is the filling |
| 6. The new century | 26 to 29 | Theodore Roosevelt *, Taft, Wilson, Harding | "Roosevelt Took Wilson's Hat" (R, T, W, H) |
| 7. Boom, crash, war | 30 to 34 | Coolidge, Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt *, Truman, Eisenhower | The 1920s boom, the crash, the Depression and the war, the war's end, the 1950s |
| 8. The Cold War | 35 to 41 | Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson *, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H. W. Bush * | "Kids Jump, Nobody Falls, Carl Rides Bikes" (K, J, N, F, C, R, B) |
| 9. The modern run | 42 to 47 | Clinton, George W. Bush *, Obama, Trump *, Biden, Trump * | Three two-term presidents, then Trump, Biden, Trump |
A few notes on using it.
Learn the chunk boundaries first. Before any names, know that chunk 4 starts at 16 with Lincoln, chunk 7 starts at 30 with Coolidge, and chunk 9 starts at 42 with Clinton. Those anchors let you find any number without counting up from Washington.
Chunks 2 and 3 are where memory goes soft. The ten presidents from John Quincy Adams to Buchanan are the least taught and the easiest to shuffle. Give them the most repetitions, and if you only have time for one first-letter sentence, make it the one for chunk 3.
Chunk 5 has two short stays. Garfield (20) was shot in 1881 and Chester Arthur (21) finished his term, so both of those numbers belong to the same year. Then comes the Cleveland sandwich, which is its own section below.
Which names reliably get swapped, and how do you fix them?
Here is every collision in the list, with one fix each. You do not need a hook for Polk or Eisenhower. You do need one for these.
| Collision | Numbers | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| John Adams and John Quincy Adams | 2 and 6 | Father, then son. The son has the extra middle name and the later number |
| William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison | 9 and 23 | Grandfather, then grandson. William Henry died about a month into office, so his is the shortest presidency on the list |
| Andrew Jackson and Andrew Johnson | 7 and 17 | Two Andrews, exactly ten apart. Jackson is the 7, Johnson the 17 |
| Andrew Johnson and Lyndon B. Johnson | 17 and 36 | Both vice presidents who took over when a president was assassinated (Lincoln, then Kennedy). A comes first, L comes later |
| John Tyler and Zachary Taylor | 10 and 12 | The two T names with Polk between them. The shorter name, Tyler, comes first |
| Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt | 26 and 32 | Theodore opens the 1900s, Franklin opens the 1930s. Franklin's stay, 1933 to 1945, is the longest on the list |
| George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush | 41 and 43 | Father, then son, with Clinton in between. The father has the extra initial and the earlier number |
The pattern worth noticing: in three of these pairs the earlier one is the older generation (the Adamses, the Harrisons, the Bushes). If you can remember who is whose father or grandfather, the order follows.
How do you handle non-consecutive terms in the numbering?
Every presidency gets a number, and a president who leaves and later returns gets a second one. That rule explains both oddities in the list.
Grover Cleveland is the 22nd and the 24th president. He served from 1885 to 1889, lost to Benjamin Harrison, then beat Harrison four years later and served again from 1893 to 1897. So the numbers run Cleveland (22), Harrison (23), Cleveland (24).
Donald Trump is the 45th and the 47th president. He served from 2017 to 2021, Joe Biden was the 46th from 2021 to 2025, and Trump returned in January 2025. The White House describes him as the 45th and 47th President, which is the same rule applied again.
That makes the count simple once you know it: 47 presidencies, held by 45 different people. The two patterns even mirror each other. Cleveland, Harrison, Cleveland in chunk 5 and Trump, Biden, Trump in chunk 9 are both a returning president with one other name sandwiched between his terms. Learn them as a matched pair and you will not lose a number in either place.
Older study sheets, songs and flash card sets written before 2025 often stop at 45 or 46. If a resource tells you there are 44 or 45 presidents, check its date before you trust the rest of its list.
What does a one-week drill schedule look like?
Short daily sessions, around fifteen minutes, with one rule that matters more than any other: start every session by recalling the earlier chunks cold, before looking at anything. That warm-up is what turns separate chunks into one continuous list.
Testing beats rereading by a wide margin here. In a well-known study published in Science, students who kept being tested on word pairs they had already recalled correctly remembered about 80% of them a week later, against 36% and 33% for the groups that stopped being tested. Reading down a list of presidents one more time feels productive. Saying the next name before you check it is what actually builds the memory.
| Day | Warm-up (from memory) | New material | Finish with |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | None | Chunks 1, 2 and 3 (presidents 1 to 15) | Say all 15 aloud, then write them out |
| 2 | Chunks 1 to 3 | Chunks 4 and 5 (16 to 25), including the Cleveland sandwich | Recall 1 to 25 |
| 3 | Chunks 1 to 5 | Chunks 6 and 7 (26 to 34) | Recall 1 to 34 |
| 4 | Chunks 1 to 7 | Chunks 8 and 9 (35 to 47) | Recall all 47 |
| 5 | None | Full flash card run, number to name | Re-drill only the misses |
| 6 | Chunk anchors (16, 30, 42) | Name to number drill, all seven collisions | Neighbour test on chunks 2 and 3 |
| 7 | None | Write all 47 on a blank page, numbered | Mark every error and drill those cards |
If a day slips, do not skip ahead. Repeat the last day's warm-up and carry on. After the week, a few spaced passes keep the list: one full run around day 10, another around day 17, and one near day 30. The spaced repetition schedule guide shows how to set those gaps around a test date if you have one.
How do you test yourself in both directions?
Knowing that the 28th president is Woodrow Wilson and knowing that Wilson is the 28th are two different skills. Quizzes and exams ask both ways, so practise both ways.
Number to name. This is the classic direction, and it is how the free US Presidents in Order deck works: each card shows a number, you say the president before flipping, and the back gives the name and years in office. All 47 presidencies are in it, including both Cleveland cards and both Trump cards.
Name to number. Say a name, produce the number. The quickest way to drill this is with the chunk anchors: hear "Coolidge", think "chunk 7 starts at 30", done. For the harder names, the free deck builder lets you make your own set of up to 20 cards, which is enough for the ten presidents in chunks 2 and 3 plus every collision name, written with the name on the front and the number on the back.
The neighbour test. Pick any president and name who came immediately before and after. This is the best single check that the list is joined up, and it exposes the Tyler and Taylor swap faster than anything else.
The blank page. Once a week, number a sheet of paper from 1 to 47 and fill it in without help. Every blank or mistake goes straight back into your drill pile.
If you want the presidents in wider context once the order is solid, the History Trivia Quiz puts a few of them among multiple-choice questions running from ancient Egypt to the space race. The same chunk and collision approach also works on other long lists. The states and capitals method uses regional blocks the same way these chunks use eras.
Frequently asked questions
What's the fastest way to memorize the presidents in order?
Split the list into nine era chunks, learn one or two chunks a day, and test yourself instead of rereading. Start each session by recalling the earlier chunks from memory, then add the new ones. Put your memory tricks only on the collisions (the repeated surnames, Tyler and Taylor, and the Cleveland and Trump numbering) rather than on every name. Four days of learning and three days of full-list testing covers all 47.
Is there a mnemonic for the US presidents?
There is no single sentence that covers all 47 without becoming harder to remember than the list itself. What works better is a short first-letter sentence per chunk, such as "Washington's Army Jogged Many Miles" for the first five, plus a specific hook for each name collision. Songs can help with rhythm, but they force you to sing from the start to reach a name in the middle, so pair them with flash cards if you need to jump straight to, say, number 28.
How many presidents have there been?
There have been 47 presidencies, held by 45 different people. Donald Trump, the current president, is the 47th. The two numbers differ because Grover Cleveland and Donald Trump each served two non-consecutive terms, and each separate term gets its own number.
Why are some presidents counted twice?
Because the numbering counts presidencies, not people. When a president leaves office and later wins again after someone else has served in between, the return gets a new number. Grover Cleveland is the 22nd and 24th president, with Benjamin Harrison in between, and Donald Trump is the 45th and 47th, with Joe Biden in between.
Start chunk 1 tonight. Open the free US Presidents in Order deck, no account needed, and run it once to see where you stand. Say each name before you flip, grade yourself honestly, and any card you mark "still learning" comes back before the run ends. The report at the end lists the presidents still to learn, with a button to study just those, so tomorrow's session starts with exactly the names you missed.