James River

The Atlantic Seaboard Fall Line, or Fall Zone, is a 900-mile (1,400 km) escarpment where the Piedmont and Atlantic coastal plain meet in the eastern United States. Much of the Atlantic Seaboard fall line passes through areas where no evidence of faulting is present.

The Jamestown settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. It was located on the northeast bank of the James River, about 2.5 mi (4 km) southwest of the center of modern Williamsburg. It was established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" on May 4, 1607 O.S., and was considered permanent after a brief abandonment in 1610. It followed several failed attempts, including the Lost Colony of Roanoke, established in 1585 on Roanoke Island, later part of North Carolina. Jamestown served as the colonial capital from 1616 until 1699. Despite the dispatch of more settlers and supplies, including the 1608 arrival of eight Polish and German colonists and the first two European women, more than 80 percent of the colonists died in 1609–10, mostly from starvation and disease. In mid-1610, the survivors abandoned Jamestown, though they returned after meeting a resupply convoy in the James River.

James VI and I was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until his death in 1625. Although he wanted to bring about a closer union, the kingdoms of Scotland and England remained individual sovereign states, with their own parliaments, judiciaries, and laws, both ruled by James in personal union.

The British colonization of the Americas is the history of establishment of control, settlement, and colonization of the continents of the Americas by England, Scotland and, after 1707, Great Britain. Colonization efforts began in the late 16th century with failed attempts by England to establish permanent colonies in the North. The first of the permanent English colonies in the Americas was established in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. Approximately 30,000 Algonquian peoples lived in the region at the time. Over the next several centuries more colonies were established in North America, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. Though most British colonies in the Americas eventually gained independence, some colonies have opted to remain under Britain's jurisdiction as British Overseas Territories.

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and the state of Delaware. The mouth of the Bay at its southern point is located between Cape Henry and Cape Charles. With its northern portion in Maryland and the southern part in Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay is a very important feature for the ecology and economy of those two states, as well as others surrounding within its watershed. More than 150 major rivers and streams flow into the Bay's 64,299-square-mile (166,534 km2) drainage basin, which covers parts of six states and all of District of Columbia.

The Colony of Virginia, chartered in 1606 and settled in 1607, was the first enduring English colony in North America, following failed attempts at settlement on Newfoundland by Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1583 and the Roanoke Colony by Sir Walter Raleigh in the late 1580s.

John Rolfe was an English explorer, farmer and merchant. He is best known for being the husband of Pocahontas and the first settler in the colony of Virginia to successfully cultivate a tobacco crop for export.

A hogshead is a large cask of liquid. More specifically, it refers to a specified volume, measured in either imperial or US customary measures, primarily applied to alcoholic beverages, such as wine, ale, or cider.

A cash crop or profit crop is an agricultural crop which is grown to sell for profit. It is typically purchased by parties separate from a farm. The term is used to differentiate marketed crops from staple crop in subsistence agriculture, which are those fed to the producer's own livestock or grown as food for the producer's family.

Bermuda Hundred was the first administrative division in the English colony of Virginia. It was founded by Sir Thomas Dale in 1613, six years after Jamestown. At the southwestern edge of the confluence of the Appomattox and James Rivers opposite City Point, annexed to Hopewell, Virginia in 1923, Bermuda Hundred was a port town for many years. The terminology "Bermuda Hundred" also included a large area adjacent to the town. In the colonial era, "hundreds" were large developments of many acres, arising from the English term to define an area which would support 100 homesteads. The port at the town of Bermuda Hundred was intended to serve other "hundreds" in addition to Bermuda Hundred.

Claremont is an incorporated town in Surry County, Virginia, United States. The population was 378 at the 2010 census. A granite marker stands as a memorial to the arrival of British settlers in the area. The town was incorporated in 1886, had a port on the James River, and gained railroad service as a terminus for a while before being abandoned. Claremont was home to the Temperance, Industrial, and Collegiate Institute, a school for African Americans founded by a former slave. The area includes a historical marker commemorating the institution.

A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, the drainage divide, made up of a succession of elevated features, such as ridges and hills. A basin may consist of smaller basins that merge at river confluences, forming a hierarchical pattern.

Alleghany County is an American county located on the far western edge of Commonwealth of Virginia. It is bordered by the Allegheny Mountains, from which the county derives its name, and it is the northernmost part of the Roanoke Region. The county seat is Covington. As of the 2020 census, the population was 15,223.

Botetourt County is a US county that lies in the Roanoke Region of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Located in the mountainous portion of the state, the county is bordered by two major ranges, the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains.

In geography, a confluence occurs where two or more flowing bodies of water join to form a single channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river ; or where two streams meet to become the source of a river of a new name ; or where two separated channels of a river rejoin at the downstream end.

The Cowpasture River is a chief tributary of the James River in western Virginia in the United States. It is 84.4 miles (135.8 km) long.

The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They once reached elevations similar to those of the Alps and the Rocky Mountains before experiencing natural erosion. The Appalachian chain is a barrier to east–west travel, as it forms a series of alternating ridgelines and valleys oriented in opposition to most highways and railroads running east–west.

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and the state of Delaware. The mouth of the Bay at its southern point is located between Cape Henry and Cape Charles. With its northern portion in Maryland and the southern part in Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay is a very important feature for the ecology and economy of those two states, as well as others surrounding within its watershed. More than 150 major rivers and streams flow into the Bay's 64,299-square-mile (166,534 km2) drainage basin, which covers parts of six states and all of District of Columbia.

Hampton Roads is the name of both a body of water in the United States that serves as a wide channel for the James, Nansemond and Elizabeth rivers between Old Point Comfort and Sewell's Point where the Chesapeake Bay flows into the Atlantic Ocean, and the surrounding metropolitan region located in the southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina portions of the Tidewater Region.

The Appomattox River is a tributary of the James River, approximately 157 miles (253 km) long, in central and eastern Virginia in the United States, named for the Appomattocs Indian tribe who lived along its lower banks in the 17th century. It drains a cotton and tobacco-growing region of the Piedmont and coastal plain southwest of Richmond.

The Chickahominy is an 87-mile-long (140 km) river in the eastern portion of the U.S. state of Virginia. The river, which serves as the eastern border of Charles City County, rises about 15 miles (24 km) northwest of Richmond and flows southeast and south to the James River. The river was named after the Chickahominy Indian tribe who lived near the river when it was claimed by English colonists in 1607. Chickahominy descendants live in Charles City County today.

The Elizabeth River is a 6-mile-long (10 km) tidal estuary forming an arm of Hampton Roads harbor at the southern end of Chesapeake Bay in southeast Virginia in the United States. It is located along the southern side of the mouth of the James River, between the cities of Portsmouth, Norfolk, and Chesapeake. Forming the core of the Hampton Roads harbor, it is heavily supported by its tributaries which depend upon it.

Richmond is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. It is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond Region. Richmond was incorporated in 1742 and has been an independent city since 1871. At the 2010 census, the city's population was 204,214; in 2020, the population had grown to 226,610, making Richmond the fourth-most populous city in Virginia. The Richmond Metropolitan Area has a population of 1,260,029, the third-most populous metro in the state.

The blue catfish is the largest species of North American catfish, reaching a length of 165 cm (65 in) and a weight of 68 kg (150 lb). The typical length is about 25–46 in (64–117 cm). The fish can live to 20 years. The native distribution of blue catfish is primarily in the Mississippi River drainage, including the Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, and Arkansas Rivers, The Des Moines River in South Central Iowa, and the Rio Grande, and south along the Gulf Coast to Belize and Guatemala. These large catfish have also been introduced in a number of reservoirs and rivers, notably the Santee Cooper lakes of Lake Marion and Lake Moultrie in South Carolina, the James River in Virginia, Powerton Lake in Pekin, Illinois, and Lake Springfield in Springfield, Illinois. This fish is also found in some lakes in Florida. The fish is considered an invasive pest in some areas, particularly the Chesapeake Bay. Blue catfish can tolerate brackish water, and thus can colonize along inland waterways of coastal regions.

The Atlantic sturgeon is a member of the family Acipenseridae and along with other sturgeon it is sometimes considered a living fossil. The Atlantic sturgeon is one of two subspecies of A. oxyrinchus, the other being the Gulf sturgeon. The main range of the Atlantic sturgeon is in eastern North America, extending from New Brunswick, Canada, to the eastern coast of Florida, United States. A disjunct population occurs in the Baltic region of Europe. The Atlantic sturgeon was in great abundance when the first European settlers came to North America, but has since declined due to overfishing, water pollution, and habitat impediments such as dams. It is considered threatened, endangered, and even locally extinct in many of its original habitats. The fish can reach 60 years of age, 15 ft (4.6 m) in length and over 800 lb (360 kg) in weight.

Glasgow is a town in Rockbridge County, Virginia, United States, at the confluence of the James and Maury Rivers. The population was 1,133 at the 2010 census.

Big Island is a census-designated place (CDP) in northern Bedford County, Virginia, United States. The population as of the 2020 United States census was 300. The CDP is located along the James River and U.S. Route 501, between Glasgow and Coleman Falls. It is part of the Lynchburg Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Coleman Falls is an unincorporated community in northern Bedford County, Virginia, United States. The community is located along the James River and U.S. Route 501, between Big Island and Boonsboro. It is part of the Lynchburg Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Lynchburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. First settled in 1757 by ferry owner John Lynch, the city's population was 79,009 at the 2020 census, making Lynchburg the 11th most populous city in Virginia. Located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains along the banks of the James River, Lynchburg is known as the "City of Seven Hills" or the "Hill City". In the 1860s, Lynchburg was the only city in Virginia that was not recaptured by the Union before the end of the American Civil War.

Richmond is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. It is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond Region. Richmond was incorporated in 1742 and has been an independent city since 1871. At the 2010 census, the city's population was 204,214; in 2020, the population had grown to 226,610, making Richmond the fourth-most populous city in Virginia. The Richmond Metropolitan Area has a population of 1,260,029, the third-most populous metro in the state.

A reservoir is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation.

The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak, is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. states and three Canadian provinces. Amtrak is a portmanteau of the words America and trak, the latter itself a sensational spelling of track.

The Northeast Regional is an intercity rail service operated by Amtrak in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic United States. In the past it has been known as the NortheastDirect, Acela Regional, or Regional. It is Amtrak's busiest route, carrying 8,686,930 passengers in fiscal year (FY) 2018, a 1.4% increase over the 8.57 million passengers in FY 2017. The Northeast Regional service earned over $613.9 million in gross ticket revenue in FY 2016, a 0.4% increase over the $611.7 million earned during FY 2015.

Boulevard Bridge in the independent city of Richmond, Virginia is a toll bridge which carries State Route 161 across the James River.

Hampton Roads is the name of both a body of water in the United States that serves as a wide channel for the James, Nansemond and Elizabeth rivers between Old Point Comfort and Sewell's Point where the Chesapeake Bay flows into the Atlantic Ocean, and the surrounding metropolitan region located in the southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina portions of the Tidewater Region.

The Port of Richmond, also known as the Richmond Deepwater Terminal, is located on the James River in Richmond, Virginia, United States, 100 miles (160 km) inland from Cape Henry and approximately 78 miles (126 km) northwest of Newport News, Virginia. It is located at 77° 25' west latitude and 37° 27' north longitude and lies adjacent to Interstate 95. The port is the western terminus for commercial navigation on the James River and is 4 miles (6 km) south of downtown Richmond. The port was built in 1940.

A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually something that is otherwise difficult or impossible to cross. There are many different designs of bridges, each serving a particular purpose and applicable to different situations. Designs of bridges vary depending on factors such as the function of the bridge, the nature of the terrain where the bridge is constructed and anchored, and the material used to make it, and the funds available to build it.

Interstate 64 (I-64) in the US state of Virginia runs east–west through the middle of the state from West Virginia to the Hampton Roads region, for a total of 299 miles (481 km). It is notable for crossing the mouth of the harbor of Hampton Roads on the Hampton Roads Bridge–Tunnel (HRBT), the first bridge–tunnel to incorporate artificial islands, concurrent with U.S. Route 60 (US 60). Also noteworthy is a section through Rockfish Gap, a wind gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains, which was equipped with an innovative system of airport-style runway lighting embedded into the pavement to aid motorists during periods of poor visibility due to fog or other conditions.

Interstate 664 (I-664) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in the US state of Virginia. The Interstate runs 20.79 miles (33.46 km) from I-64 and I-264 in Chesapeake north to I-64 in Hampton. I-664 forms the west side of the Hampton Roads Beltway, a circumferential highway serving the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. The Interstate crosses Hampton Roads via the Monitor–Merrimac Memorial Bridge–Tunnel (MMMBT) between Suffolk and Newport News. I-664 is connected to the other major cities of the metropolitan area—Portsmouth, Norfolk, and Virginia Beach—by I-264. The Interstate also has a connection to Portsmouth through State Route 164 (SR 164) and to Suffolk via U.S. Route 13 (US 13), US 58, and US 460.

The James River Bridge (JRB) is a four-lane divided highway lift bridge across the James River in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Owned and operated by the Virginia Department of Transportation, it carries U.S. Route 17 (US 17), US 258, and State Route 32 across the river near its mouth at Hampton Roads. The bridge connects Newport News on the Virginia Peninsula with Isle of Wight County in the South Hampton Roads region, and is the easternmost such crossing without a tunnel component.

U.S. Route 17 or U.S. Highway 17 (US 17), also known as the Coastal Highway, is a north–south United States Highway that spans in the southeastern United States. It runs close to the Atlantic Coast for much of its length, with the exception of the portion between Punta Gorda and Jacksonville, Florida, and the portion from Fredericksburg to Winchester, Virginia, both of which follow a more inland route. Major metropolitan areas served along US 17's route include the Punta Gorda, Greater Orlando, and Jacksonville metropolitan areas in Florida, the Brunswick and Savannah metropolitan areas in Georgia, the Charleston and Myrtle Beach metropolitan areas in South Carolina, the Cape Fear and New Bern metropolitan areas in North Carolina, and the Hampton Roads and Winchester metropolitan areas in Virginia.

The Jamestown Ferry is a free automobile and bus ferry service across a navigable portion of the James River in Virginia. It carries State Route 31, connecting Jamestown in James City County with Scotland Wharf in Surry County.

The Benjamin Harrison Memorial Bridge is a vertical-lift bridge that spans the James River between Jordan's Point in Prince George County and Charles City County near Hopewell, Virginia. The bridge carries vehicle traffic of State Route 106 and State Route 156, and is owned by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT). It is named after Benjamin Harrison V, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a Governor of Virginia, who lived nearby at Berkeley Plantation.

The National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF) consists of ships of the United States, mostly merchant vessels, that have been mothballed but can be activated within 20 to 120 days to provide shipping during national military emergencies, or non-military emergencies such as commercial shipping crises.

The United States of America, commonly known as the United States or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City.

The United States Maritime Administration (MARAD) is an agency of the United States Department of Transportation. MARAD administers financial programs to develop, promote, and operate the U.S. Maritime Service and the U.S. Merchant Marine. In addition it conducts research and development activities in the maritime field; regulates the transfer of U.S. documented vessels to foreign registries; maintains equipment, shipyard facilities, and reserve fleets of Government-owned ships essential for national defense.Its programs promote the use of waterborne transportation and its seamless integration with other segments of the transportation system, and the viability of the U.S. merchant marine. The Maritime Administration works in many areas involving ships and shipping, shipbuilding, port operations, vessel operations, national security, environment, and safety. The Maritime Administration is also charged with maintaining the health of the merchant marine, since commercial mariners, vessels, and intermodal facilities are vital for supporting national security, and so the agency provides support and information for current mariners, extensive support for educating future mariners, and programs to educate America's young people about the vital role the maritime industry plays in the lives of all Americans.

The United States Navy maintains a number of its ships as part of a reserve fleet, often called the "Mothball Fleet". While the details of the maintenance activity have changed several times, the basics are constant: keep the ships afloat and sufficiently working as to be reactivated quickly in an emergency.