Establishing the stress conditions developed around displacement piles in sands is crucial to improving the understanding and modeling of their behavior. High-quality experiments and theoretical analyses are providing new insights into the effects of penetration on stress conditions. This paper synthesizes the findings from three independent experimental studies on normally consolidated silica sands and a trio of numerical analyses that tackle the problem from different perspectives. The significant degrees of uncertainty in the measurements and predictions are recognized and significant differences between data sets are discussed and largely resolved. Applying a consistent normalized interpretive framework leads to clear common trends regarding how installation affects the stress regime. While the main emphasis is placed on the radial effective stresses developed around pile shafts, the circumferential and vertical stress states are also considered.