Virginia

The story of Pocahontas was simplified and romanticized by later artists and authors, including Smith himself, and promoted by her descendants, some of whom married into elite colonial families.^[4]

May 2007 marked 400 years since the establishment of the Jamestown Colony. Observances for this quadricentennial recognized both the contributions from and conflicts between Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans, all of which had a meaningful part in shaping Virginia's ongoing history.^[5][6] This history includes events that were central to the larger French and Indian, Revolutionary, and Civil Wars, and significant to the Cold War, Afghanistan War, and the civil rights movement. Fictionalized stories about Virginia's history became very popular in the period after the Revolutionary War and turned into touchstones that helped shape the state's historic politics and beliefs as, despite historic inaccuracies, myths about Pocahontas and John Smith, George Washington's childhood, and the causes of the Civil War all became embedded in both the local and national cultures.^[7][4][8]

Original inhabitants

The first people are estimated to have arrived in Virginia over 12,000 years ago.^[9] By 5,000 years ago, more permanent settlements emerged, and farming began by 900 AD. By 1500, the Algonquian peoples had founded towns such as Werowocomoco in the Tidewater region, which they referred to as Tsenacommacah. The other major language groups in the area were the Siouan to the west and the Iroquoians, who included the Nottoway and Meherrin, to the north and south. After 1570, the Algonquians consolidated under Wahunsenacawh, known in English as Chief Powhatan, in response to threats from these other groups on their trade network.^[10] Powhatan controlled more than thirty smaller tribes, which shared a common Virginia Algonquian language, with more than 150 settlements that had total population of around 15,000 in 1607.^[11] Over that century however, three-fourths of the native population in Virginia would die from smallpox and other Old World diseases.^[12]

Colony

Several European expeditions, including a group of Spanish Jesuits, explored the Chesapeake Bay during the 16th century.^[13] To help counter Spain's colonies in the Caribbean, Queen Elizabeth I of England supported Walter Raleigh's April 1584 expedition to the Atlantic coast of North America.^[14][15] The name "Virginia" was used by Captain Arthur Barlowe in the expedition's report, and may have been suggested that year by Raleigh or Elizabeth, perhaps noting her status as the "Virgin Queen" or that they viewed the land as being untouched, and may also be related to an Algonquin phrase, Wingandacoa or Windgancon, or leader's name, Wingina, as heard by the expedition.^[16][17] Initially the name applied to the entire coastal region from South Carolina to Maine, plus the island of Bermuda.^[18] Raleigh's colony failed, but in 1606, the new king James I of England issued the First Virginia Charter to the London Company, a joint stock company that financed a new expedition, which was led by Christopher Newport and sailed that December. They landed in May 1607, and established a settlement named for the king, Jamestown.^[19]

Williamsburg was Virginia's capital from 1699 to 1780.

Life in the colony was perilous, and many died during the Starving Time in 1609 and in a series of conflicts with the Powhatan Confederacy that started in 1610, and flared up again in 1622, when led by Powhatan's brother, Opechancanough.^[20] Only 3,400 of the 6,000 early settlers had survived by 1624.^[21] However, European demand for tobacco fueled the arrival of more settlers and servants.^[22] The headright system tried to solve the labor shortage by providing colonists with land for each indentured servant they transported to Virginia.^[23] Colonists struggled against both the London Company and English monarchy, which took direct control of the colony in 1624 in part because in 1619, colonists had gained greater local control with an elected leadership. Later called the House of Burgesses, it shared power with the governors appointed by the crown.^[24] In 1635, colonists arrested a despised governor and forced him to return to England against his will.^[25] The turmoil of the English Civil War permitted Virginia even greater autonomy during the 1650s, and many supporters of the king fled to the colony, becoming known as "Virginia Cavaliers."^[26]

African workers were first imported to Jamestown in 1619 initially under the rules of indentured servitude. The shift to a system of African slavery in Virginia was propelled by the legal cases of John Punch, who was sentenced to lifetime slavery for attempting to escape servitude in 1640, and of John Casor, who was claimed by Anthony Johnson as his servant for life in 1655.^[27] Slavery first appears in Virginia statutes in 1661 and 1662, when a law made it hereditary based on the mother's status.^[28] Tensions and the geographic differences between the working and ruling classes led to Bacon's Rebellion in 1676, by which time current and former indentured servants made up as much as eighty percent of the population.^[29] The rebels, who burned Jamestown, were largely from the colony's frontier, and opposed to the governor's conciliatory policy towards native tribes. One result of the rebellion was the signing at Middle Plantation of the Treaty of 1677, which made the signatory tribes tributary states and was part of a pattern of appropriating tribal land by force and treaty.^[30]

In 1693, the College of William & Mary was founded in Middle Plantation, which was renamed Williamsburg in 1699, when it became the new capital of the growing colony.^[31] Colonists in the 1700s were likewise moving inland, and in 1747, a group of Virginian speculators formed the Ohio Company, with the backing of the British crown, to start English settlement and trade in the Ohio Country west of the Appalachian Mountains.^[32] The Kingdom of France, which claimed this area as part of their colony of New France, viewed this as a threat, and the ensuing French and Indian War became part of the Seven Years' War (1756–1763). A militia from several British colonies, called the Virginia Regiment, was led by then-Lieutenant Colonel George Washington.^[33]

Statehood

In 1765, Patrick Henry led a protest of the unpopular Stamp Act in the House of Burgesses, later painted by Peter Rothermel.

The British Parliament's efforts to levy new taxes in the decade following the French and Indian War were deeply unpopular in the colonies. In the House of Burgesses, opposition to taxation without representation was led by Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee, among others.^[34] Virginians began to coordinate their actions with other colonies in 1773, and sent delegates to the Continental Congress the following year.^[35] After the House of Burgesses was dissolved by the British governor in 1774, Virginia's revolutionary leaders continued to govern via the Virginia Conventions. On May 15, 1776, the Convention declared Virginia's independence from the British Empire and adopted George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights, which was then included in a new constitution.^[36] Another Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, drew upon Mason's work in drafting the national Declaration of Independence.^[37]

After the American Revolutionary War began in 1776, George Washington was selected by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia to head the Continental Army, and many Virginians joined the army and other revolutionary militias. Virginia was the first colony to ratify the Articles of Confederation in December 1777.^[38] In April 1780, the capital was moved to Richmond at the urging of Governor Thomas Jefferson, who feared that Williamsburg's coastal location would make it vulnerable to British attack.^[39] British forces indeed landed around Portsmouth in October 1780, and soldiers under Benedict Arnold managed to raid Richmond in January 1781.^[40] The British army had over seven thousand soldiers and twenty-five warships stationed in Virginia at the beginning of 1781, but General Charles Cornwallis and his superiors were indecisive, and maneuvers by the three thousand soldiers under the Marquis de Lafayette and twenty-nine allied French warships together managed to trap the British on the Virginia Peninsula in September. Around sixteen thousand soldiers under George Washington and Comte de Rochambeau quickly converged there and defeated Cornwallis in the siege of Yorktown.^[41] His surrender on October 19, 1781, led to peace negotiations in Paris and secured the independence of the colonies.^[42]

Virginians were instrumental in the new country's early years and in writing the United States Constitution. James Madison drafted the Virginia Plan in 1787 and the Bill of Rights in 1789.^[37] Virginia ratified the Constitution on June 25, 1788. The three-fifths compromise ensured that Virginia, with its large number of slaves, initially had the largest bloc in the House of Representatives. Together with the Virginia dynasty of presidents, this gave the Commonwealth national importance. In 1790, both Virginia and Maryland ceded territory to form the new District of Columbia, though the Virginian area was retroceded in 1846.^[43] Virginia is called the "Mother of States" because of its role in being carved into states such as Kentucky, which became the fifteenth state in 1792, and for the numbers of American pioneers born in Virginia.^[44]

Civil War

Eyre Crowe painted Slaves Waiting for Sale: Richmond, Virginia in 1853, after visiting the city's slave markets, where thousands were sold every year.^[45]

Between 1790 and 1860, the number of slaves in Virginia rose from around 290 thousand to over 490 thousand, roughly one-third of the state population during that time, and the number of slaveholders rose to over fifty thousand, both the most in the U.S.^[46][47] Soil exhausted by years of monoculture tobacco farming pushed the plantation economy to expand westward,^[48] and as labor-intensive cotton came to dominate southern agriculture after 1800, Virginia plantations turned to exporting slaves by the thousands, breaking up many families in the process and making the breeding of slaves, often through rape, a profitable business for their owners, especially as new federal laws restricted the importation of slaves from abroad.^[49][50] In addition to agriculture, slave labor was increasingly used in mining, shipbuilding, and other industrial jobs.^[51] The failed slave uprisings of Gabriel Prosser in 1800, George Boxley in 1815, and Nat Turner in 1831, however, marked the growing resistance to the system of slavery. Afraid of further uprisings, Virginia's government in the 1830s encouraged free Blacks to migrate to Liberia.^[48]

On October 16, 1859, abolitionist John Brown led a raid on an armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in an attempt to start a slave revolt across the southern states. The polarized national response to his raid, capture, trial, and execution in Charles Town that December marked a tipping point for many who believed the end of slavery would need to be achieved by force.^[52] Abraham Lincoln's 1860 election further convinced many southern supporters of slavery that his opposition to its expansion would ultimately mean the end of slavery across the country. In South Carolina, the first state to secede to preserve the institution of slavery, a regiment loyal to the newly-formed Confederate States of America seized Fort Sumter on April 14, 1861, prompting President Lincoln to call for a federal army of 75,000 men from state militias the next day.^[53]

Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy from 1861 to 1865, when it was partially burned by them prior to its recapture by Union forces.

In Virginia, a special convention called by the General Assembly voted on April 17 to secede on the condition it was approved in a referendum the next month. The convention then voted to join the Confederacy, which named Richmond its capital on May 20.^[44] During the May 23 referendum, armed pro-Confederate groups prevented the casting and counting of votes from many northwestern counties that opposed secession. Representatives from 27 of these counties instead began the Wheeling Convention that month, which organized a government loyal to the Union and led to the separation of West Virginia as a new state.^[54]

The armies of the Union and Confederacy first met on July 21, 1861 in Battle of Bull Run near Manassas, Virginia, where a Confederate victory established that the war would not be easily decided. Union General George B. McClellan organized the Army of the Potomac, which landed on the Virginia Peninsula in March 1862 and reached the outskirts of Richmond that June. With Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston wounded in fighting outside the city, command his Army of Northern Virginia fell to Robert E. Lee. Over the next month, Lee drove the Union army back, and starting that September, led the first of several invasions into Union territory. During the next three years of war, more battles were fought in Virginia than anywhere else, including the battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania, and the concluding Battle of Appomattox Court House, where Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865.^[55] After the capture of Richmond that month, the state capital was briefly moved to Lynchburg,^[56] while the Confederate leadership fled to Danville.^[57] 32,751 Virginians died in the Civil War.^[58]

Reconstruction and Jim Crow

With nearly 800,000 soldiers passing through, Hampton Roads was America's second largest port of embarkation during World War I.^[59]

Virginia was formally restored to the United States in 1870, due to the work of the Committee of Nine.^[60] During the post-war Reconstruction era, African Americans were able to unite in communities, particularly around Richmond, Danville, and the Tidewater region, and take a greater role in Virginia society, as many achieved some land ownership during the 1870s.^[61][62] Virginia adopted a constitution in 1868 which guaranteed political, civil, and voting rights, and provided for free public schools.^[63] However, with many railroad lines and other infrastructure investments destroyed during the Civil War, the Commonwealth was deeply in debt, and in the late 1870s redirected money from public schools to pay bondholders. The Readjuster Party formed in 1877 and won legislative power in 1879 by uniting Black and white Virginians behind a shared opposition to debt payments and the perceived plantation elites.^[64]

The Readjusters focused on building up schools, like Virginia Tech and Virginia State, and successfully forced West Virginia to share in the pre-war debt.^[65] But in 1883, they were divided by a proposed repeal of anti-miscegenation laws, and days before that year's election, a riot in Danville, involving armed policemen, left four Black men and one white man dead.^[66] These events motivated a push by white supremacists to seize political power through voter suppression, and segregationists in the Democratic Party won the legislature that year and maintained control for decades.^[67] They passed Jim Crow laws and in 1902 rewrote the state constitution to include a poll tax and other voter registration measures that effectively disenfranchised most African Americans and many poor whites.^[68]

New economic forces would meanwhile industrialize the Commonwealth. Virginian James Albert Bonsack invented the tobacco cigarette rolling machine in 1880 leading to new large-scale production centered around Richmond. Railroad magnate Collis Potter Huntington founded Newport News Shipbuilding in 1886, which was responsible for building six World War I-era dreadnoughts, seven battleships, and 25 destroyers for the U.S. Navy from 1907 to 1923.^[69] During the war, German submarines like U-151 attacked ships outside the port,^[70] which was a major site for transportation of both soldiers and supplies.^[59] A homecoming parade to honor African-American veterans returning from the war was attacked in July 1919 as part of a renewed white-supremacy movement that was known as Red Summer.^[71] During World War II, the shipyard quadrupled its labor force to 70,000 by 1943, while the Radford Arsenal outside Blacksburg had 22,000 workers making explosives.^[72]

Civil rights to present

Protests against underfunded segregated schools started by Barbara Rose Johns in 1951 in Farmville led to the lawsuit Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County. This case, filed by Richmond natives Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill, was decided in 1954 with Brown v. Board of Education, which rejected the doctrine of "separate but equal". But, in 1956, under the policy of "massive resistance" led by the influential segregationist Senator Harry F. Byrd and his Byrd Organization, the Commonwealth prohibited desegregated local schools from receiving state or private funding as part of the Stanley Plan. After schools in many districts began closing in September 1958, state and district courts ruled the plan unconstitutional, and on February 2, 1959, the first Black students integrated schools in Arlington and Norfolk, where they were known as the Norfolk 17.^[73] Prince Edward County still refused to integrate, and closed their county school system in June 1959. The Supreme Court ordered the county's public schools to be, like others in the state, open and integrated in May 1964, which they finally did that September.^[74][75]

Protests in 2020 were focused on the Confederate monuments in the state.

The civil rights movement gained national support during the 1960s. Federal passage of the Civil Rights Act in June 1964 and Voting Rights Act in August 1965, and their later enforcement, helped end racial segregation in Virginia and overturn Jim Crow era state laws.^[76] In June 1967, the Supreme Court also struck down the state's ban on interracial marriage with Loving v. Virginia. In 1968, Governor Mills Godwin called a commission to rewrite the state constitution. The new constitution, which banned discrimination and removed articles which now violated federal law, passed in a referendum with 71.8% support and went into effect in June 1971.^[77] In 1977, Black members became the majority of Richmond's city council; in 1989, Douglas Wilder became the first African American elected as governor in the United States; and in 1992, Bobby Scott became the first Black congressman from Virginia since 1888.^[78][79]

The expansion of federal government offices into Northern Virginia's suburbs during the Cold War boosted the region's population and economy.^[80] The Central Intelligence Agency outgrew their offices in Foggy Bottom during the Korean War, and moved to Langley in 1961, in part due to a decision by the National Security Council that the agency relocate outside the District of Columbia.^[81] The agency was involved in various Cold War events, and its headquarters was a target of Soviet espionage activities. The Pentagon, built in Arlington during World War II as the headquarters of the Department of Defense, was one of the targets of the September 11, 2001 attacks; 189 people died at the site when a jet passenger plane was flown into the building.^[82] Mass shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007 and in Virginia Beach in 2019 led to passage of gun control measures in 2020.^[83] Racial injustice and the presence of Confederate monuments in Virginia have also led to large demonstrations, including in August 2017, when a white supremacist drove his car into protesters, killing one, and in June 2020, when protests that were part of the larger Black Lives Matter movement brought about the removal of statues on Monument Avenue in Richmond and elsewhere.^[84]

Discover more about History related topics

History of Virginia

History of Virginia

The written history of Virginia begins with documentation by the first Spanish explorers to reach the area in the 1500s, when it was occupied chiefly by Algonquian, Iroquoian, and Siouan peoples. In 1584-1590 "Virginia"" was on Roanoke island of North Carolina. After 20 years, in 1607, English re-colonization began in Virginia. Not far north from their 1st colony. With Jamestown, which would become the first permanent English settlement in North America. The Virginia Company colony was looking for gold and spices, and land to grow crops, however they would find no fortunes in the area, and struggled to maintain a food supply. The settlement survived the famine during the harsh winter of 1609, which forced colonists to eat leather from their clothes and boots, and resort to cannibalism. In 1610, survivors abandoned Jamestown, although they returned after meeting a resupply convoy in the James River. Soon thereafter during the early 17th century, tobacco emerged as a profitable export. It was chiefly grown on plantations, using primarily enslaved labor for the intensive hand labor involved. After 1662, the colony turned black slavery into a hereditary racial caste. Jamestown would serve as the Colony of Virginia's capitol from 1607 to 1699, until the capitol was moved to Williamsburg, Virginia, from 1699 to 1780. Since 1780, Virginia's capitol city has been Richmond, Virginia.

John Smith (explorer)

John Smith (explorer)

John Smith was an English soldier, explorer, colonial governor, admiral of New England, and author. He played an important role in the establishment of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in North America, in the early 17th century. He was a leader of the Virginia Colony between September 1608 and August 1609, and he led an exploration along the rivers of Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay, during which he became the first English explorer to map the Chesapeake Bay area. Later, he explored and mapped the coast of New England. He was knighted for his services to Sigismund Báthory, Prince of Transylvania, and his friend Mózes Székely.

First Families of Virginia

First Families of Virginia

First Families of Virginia (FFV) were those families in Colonial Virginia who were socially prominent and wealthy, but not necessarily the earliest settlers. They descended from English colonists who primarily settled at Jamestown, Williamsburg, the Northern Neck and along the James River and other navigable waters in Virginia during the 17th century. These elite families generally married within their social class for many generations and, as a result, most surnames of First Families date to the colonial period.

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans, also known as American Indians, First Americans, Indigenous Americans, and other terms, are the Indigenous peoples of the mainland United States. There are 574 federally recognized tribes living within the US, about half of which are associated with Indian reservations. As defined by the United States Census, "Native Americans" are Indigenous tribes that are originally from the contiguous United States, along with Alaska Natives. Indigenous peoples of the United States who are not listed as American Indian or Alaska Native include Native Hawaiians, Samoan Americans, and Chamorros. The US Census groups these peoples as "Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders".

French and Indian War

French and Indian War

The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the start of the war, the French colonies had a population of roughly 60,000 settlers, compared with 2 million in the British colonies. The outnumbered French particularly depended on their native allies.

American Revolutionary War

American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War, also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the military conflict of the American Revolution in which American Patriot forces under George Washington's command defeated the British, establishing and securing the independence of the United States. Fighting began on April 19, 1775, at the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The war was formalized and intensified following passage of the Lee Resolution on July 2, 1776, which asserted that the Thirteen Colonies were "free and independent states", and the Declaration of Independence, drafted by the Committee of Five and written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, two days later, on July 4, 1776, by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union and the Confederacy, the latter formed by states that had seceded. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prevented from doing so, which was widely believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction.

Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term cold war is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported opposing sides in major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based on the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race.

Civil rights movement

Civil rights movement

The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the United States. The movement had its origins in the Reconstruction era during the late 19th century, although it made its largest legislative gains in the 1960s after years of direct actions and grassroots protests. The social movement's major nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience campaigns eventually secured new protections in federal law for the civil rights of all Americans.

George Washington

George Washington

George Washington was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot forces to victory in the American Revolutionary War and served as president of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which created and ratified the Constitution of the United States and the American federal government. Washington has been called the "Father of his Country" for his manifold leadership in the nation's founding.

Lost Cause of the Confederacy

Lost Cause of the Confederacy

The Lost Cause of the Confederacy is an American pseudohistorical negationist mythology that claims the cause of the Confederate States during the American Civil War was just, heroic, and not centered on slavery. First enunciated in 1866, it has continued to influence racism, gender roles, and religious attitudes in the Southern United States to the present day.

Algonquian peoples

Algonquian peoples

The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups. Historically, the peoples were prominent along the Atlantic Coast and into the interior along the Saint Lawrence River and around the Great Lakes. This grouping consists of the peoples who speak Algonquian languages.

Virginia is shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed, and the parallel 36°30′ north.

Virginia is located in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.^[85][86] Virginia has a total area of 42,774.2 square miles (110,784.7 km²), including 3,180.13 square miles (8,236.5 km²) of water, making it the 35th-largest state by area.^[87] The Commonwealth is bordered by Maryland and Washington, D.C. to the north and east; by the Atlantic Ocean to the east; by North Carolina to the south; by Tennessee to the southwest; by Kentucky to the west; and by West Virginia to the north and west. Virginia's boundary with Maryland and Washington, D.C. extends to the low-water mark of the south shore of the Potomac River.^[88]

The Commonwealth's southern border is defined as 36°30' north latitude, though surveyor error in the 1700s led to deviations of as much as three arcminutes as the North Carolina border moved west.^[89] Surveyors appointed by Virginia and Tennessee worked in 1802 and 1803 to reset the border as a line from the summit of White Top Mountain to the top of Tri-State Peak in the Cumberland Mountains. However, errors in this line were discovered in 1856, and the Virginia General Assembly proposed a new surveying commission in 1871. Tennessee's representatives preferred to keep the 1803 line, and in 1893, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in their state's favor in the case Virginia v. Tennessee.^[90][91] One result of this is the division of the city of Bristol between the two states.^[92]

Geology and terrain

The Chesapeake Bay separates the contiguous portion of the Commonwealth from the two-county peninsula of Virginia's Eastern Shore. The bay was formed from the drowned river valley of the ancient Susquehanna River.^[93] Many of Virginia's rivers flow into the Chesapeake Bay, including the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James, which create three peninsulas in the bay, traditionally referred to as "necks" named Northern Neck, Middle Peninsula, and the Virginia Peninsula from north to south.^[94] Sea level rise has eroded the land on Virginia's islands, which include Tangier Island in the bay and Chincoteague, one of 23 barrier islands on the Atlantic coast.^[95][96]

Great Falls is on the fall line of the Potomac River, and its rocks date to the late Precambrian era.^[97]

The Tidewater is a coastal plain between the Atlantic coast and the fall line. It includes the Eastern Shore and major estuaries of Chesapeake Bay. The Piedmont is a series of sedimentary and igneous rock-based foothills east of the mountains which were formed in the Mesozoic era.^[98] The region, known for its heavy clay soil, includes the Southwest Mountains around Charlottesville.^[99] The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the Appalachian Mountains with the highest points in the Commonwealth, the tallest being Mount Rogers at 5,729 feet (1,746 m).^[2] The Ridge-and-Valley region is west of the mountains, carbonate rock based, and includes the Massanutten Mountain ridge and the Great Appalachian Valley, which is called the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia.^[100] The Cumberland Plateau and Cumberland Mountains are in the southwest corner of Virginia, south of the Allegheny Plateau. In this region, rivers flow northwest, with a dendritic drainage system, into the Ohio River basin.^[101]

The Virginia Seismic Zone has not had a history of regular earthquake activity. Earthquakes are rarely above 4.5 in magnitude, because Virginia is located away from the edges of the North American Plate. The Commonwealth's largest earthquake in at least a century, at a magnitude of 5.8, struck central Virginia on August 23, 2011, near Mineral.^[102] Due to the area's geologic properties, this earthquake was felt from Northern Florida to Southern Ontario.^[103] 35 million years ago, a bolide impacted what is now eastern Virginia. The resulting Chesapeake Bay impact crater may explain what earthquakes and subsidence the region does experience.^[104] A meteor impact is also theorized as the source of Lake Drummond, the largest of the two natural lakes in the state.^[105]

The Commonwealth's carbonate rock is filled with more than 4,000 limestone caves, ten of which are open for tourism, including the popular Luray Caverns and Skyline Caverns.^[106] Virginia's iconic Natural Bridge is also the remaining roof of a collapsed limestone cave.^[107] Coal mining takes place in the three mountainous regions at 45 distinct coal beds near Mesozoic basins.^[108] More than 72 million tons of other non-fuel resources, such as slate, kyanite, sand, or gravel, were also mined in Virginia in 2020^[update].^[109] The largest-known deposits of uranium in the U.S. are under Coles Hill, Virginia. Despite a challenge that reached the U.S. Supreme Court twice, the state has banned its mining since 1982 due to environmental and public health concerns.^[110]

Climate

Virginia has a humid subtropical climate that transitions to humid continental west of the Blue Ridge Mountains.^[111] Seasonal extremes vary from average lows of 25 °F (−4 °C) in January to average highs of 86 °F (30 °C) in July.^[112] The Atlantic Ocean and Gulf Stream have a strong effect on eastern and southeastern coastal areas of the Commonwealth, making the climate there warmer and more constant. Most of Virginia's recorded extremes in temperature and precipitation have occurred in the Blue Ridge Mountains and areas west.^[113] Virginia receives an average of 43.49 inches (110 cm) of precipitation annually,^[112] with the Shenandoah Valley being the state's driest region due to the mountains on either side.^[113]

Virginia has around 35–45 days with thunderstorms annually, and storms are common in the late afternoon and evenings between April and September.^[114] These months are also the most common for tornadoes,^[115] sixteen of which touched down in the Commonwealth in 2022.^[116] Hurricanes and tropical storms can occur from August to October, and though they typically impact coastal regions, the deadliest natural disaster in Virginia was Hurricane Camille, which killed over 150 people mainly in inland Nelson County in 1969.^[113][117] Between December and March, cold-air damming caused by the Appalachian Mountains can lead to significant snowfalls across the state, such as the January 2016 blizzard, which created the state's highest recorded snowfall of 36.6 inches (93 cm) near Bluemont.^[118][119] Cities in Virginia can receive between 9.4–14 inches (24–36 cm) of snow annually, but recent winters have seen below-average snowfalls, and about 74% less snow fell during the 2020-2021 winter season than the thirty-year average.^[120][121]

Part of this is due to climate change in Virginia, which is leading to higher temperatures year-round as well as more heavy rain and flooding events.^[122] Urban heat islands can be found in many Virginia cities and suburbs, particularly in neighborhoods linked to historic redlining.^[123][124] Arlington had the most code orange days in 2021 for high ozone pollution in the air, with four, followed by Fairfax County with three.^[125] The closure and conversion of coal power plants in Virginia and the Ohio Valley region has reduced haze in the mountains, which peaked in 1998.^[126] Exposure of particulate matter in Virginia's air has been cut in half from 13.5 micrograms per cubic meter in 2003, when coal provided half of Virginia's electricity, to 6.6 in 2022,^[127] when coal provided just 3.3%, less than renewables like solar power and biomass.^[128][129] Current plans call for 30% of the Commonwealth's electricity to be renewable by 2030 and for all to be carbon-free by 2050.^[130]

Ecosystem

Forests cover 62% of Virginia as of 2021^[update], of which 80% is considered hardwood forest, meaning that trees in Virginia are primarily deciduous and broad-leaved. The other 20% is pine, with Loblolly and shortleaf pine dominating much of central and eastern Virginia.^[131] In the western and mountainous parts of the Commonwealth, oak and hickory are most common, while lower altitudes are more likely to have small but dense stands of moisture-loving hemlocks and mosses in abundance.^[113] Spongy moth infestations in oak trees and the blight in chestnut trees have decreased both of their numbers, leaving more room for hickory and invasive ailanthus trees.^[132][113] In the lowland tidewater and Piedmont, yellow pines tend to dominate, with bald cypress wetland forests in the Great Dismal and Nottoway swamps.^[131] Other common trees include red spruce, Atlantic White cedar, tulip-poplar, and the flowering dogwood, the state tree and flower, as well as willows, ashes, and laurels.^[133] Plants like milkweed, dandelions, daisies, ferns, and Virginia creeper, which is featured on the state flag, are also common.^[134] The Thompson Wildlife Area in Fauquier is known for having one of the largest populations of trillium wildflowers in all of North America.^[113]

White-tailed deer are also known as Virginia deer, and up to seven thousand live in Shenandoah National Park.^[135]

White-tailed deer, one of 75 mammal species found in Virginia, rebounded from an estimated population of as few as 25 thousand in the 1930s to over one million by the 2010s.^[136][137] Native carnivorans include black bears, who have a population of around five to six thousand in the state,^[138] as well as bobcats, coyotes, both gray and red foxes, raccoons, weasels and skunks. Rodents include groundhogs, nutria, beavers, both gray squirrels and fox squirrels, chipmunks, and Allegheny woodrats, while the seventeen bat species include brown bats and the Virginia big-eared bat, the state mammal.^[139][137] The Virginia opossum is also the only marsupial native to the United States and Canada,^[140] and the native Appalachian cottontail was recognized in 1992 as a distinct species of rabbit, one of three found in the state.^[141] Whales, dolphins, and porpoises have also been recorded in Virginia's coastal waters, with bottlenose dolphins being the most frequent aquatic mammals.^[137]

Virginia's bird fauna consists of 422 counted species, of which 359 are regularly occurring, 41 are accidental (vagrant), 20 are hypothetical, and two are extinct; of the regularly occurring species, 214 have bred in Virginia, while the rest are winter residents or transients in Virginia.^[142] Water birds include sandpipers, wood ducks, and Virginia rail, while common inland examples include warblers, woodpeckers, and cardinals, the state bird. Birds of prey include osprey, broad-winged hawks, and barred owls.^[143] There are no species of bird endemic to the Commonwealth.^[142] Audubon recognizes 21 Important Bird Areas in the state.^[144] Peregrine falcons, whose numbers dramatically declined due to DDT pesticide poisoning in the middle of the 20th century, are the focus of conservation efforts in the state and a reintroduction program in Shenandoah National Park.^[145]

Virginia has 226 species of freshwater fish from 25 families; the state's diverse array of fish species is attributable to its varied and humid climate, topography, interconnected river system, and lack of Pleistocene glaciers. The state's lakes and rivers are home to Eastern blacknose dace and sculpin on the Appalachian Plateau; smallmouth bass and redhorse sucker in the Ridge-and-Valley region; brook trout, the state fish, and Kanawha darter in the Blue Ridge; stripeback darter and Roanoke bass in the Piedmont; and swampfish, bluespotted sunfish, and pirate perch in the Tidewater.^[146] The Chesapeake Bay is host to clams, oysters, and 350 species of saltwater and estuarine fish, including the bay's most abundant finfish, the Bay anchovy, as well as the invasive blue catfish.^[147][148] An estimated 405 million Chesapeake blue crabs live in the bay as of 2020^[update].^[149] There are 34 native species of crayfish, like the Big Sandy, which often inhabit rocky bottomed streambeds.^[150][113] Amphibians found in Virginia include the Cumberland Plateau salamander and Eastern hellbender,^[151] while the northern watersnake is the most common of the 32 snake species.^[152]

Protected lands

Oak trees produce a haze of isoprene, which helps give the Blue Ridge Mountains their signature color.^[153]

As of 2019^[update], roughly 16.2% of land in the Commonwealth is protected by federal, state, and local governments and non-profits.^[154] Federal lands account for the majority, with thirty National Park Service units in the state, such as Great Falls Park and the Appalachian Trail, and one national park, Shenandoah.^[155] Shenandoah was established in 1935 and encompasses the scenic Skyline Drive. Almost forty percent of the park's total 199,173 acres (806 km²) area has been designated as wilderness under the National Wilderness Preservation System.^[156] The U.S. Forest Service administers the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, which cover more than 1.6 million acres (6,500 km²) within Virginia's mountains, and continue into West Virginia and Kentucky.^[157] The Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge also extends into North Carolina, as does the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge, which marks the beginning of the Outer Banks.^[158]

State agencies control about one-third of protected land in the state,^[154] and the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation manages over 75,900 acres (307.2 km²) in forty Virginia state parks and 59,222 acres (239.7 km²) in 65 Natural Area Preserves, plus three undeveloped parks.^[159][160] Breaks Interstate Park crosses the Kentucky border and is one of only two inter-state parks in the United States.^[161] Sustainable logging is allowed in 26 state forests managed by the Virginia Department of Forestry totaling 71,972 acres (291.3 km²),^[162] as is hunting in 44 Wildlife Management Areas run by the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources covering over 205,000 acres (829.6 km²).^[163] The Chesapeake Bay is not a national park, but is protected by both state and federal legislation and the inter-state Chesapeake Bay Program, which conducts restoration on the bay and its watershed.^[164]

Cities and towns

Population density of Virginia counties and cities in 2020

Virginia is divided into 95 counties and 38 independent cities, which the U.S. Census Bureau describes as county-equivalents.^[165] This general method of treating cities and counties on par with each other is unique to Virginia, and stretches back the influence the city of Williamsburg had in the colonial period.^[166] Only three other independent cities exist elsewhere in the United States, each in a different state.^[167] The differences between counties and cities in Virginia are small and have to do with how each assess new taxes, whether a referendum is necessary to issue bonds, and with the application of Dillon's Rule, which limits the authority of cities and counties to countermand acts expressly allowed by the General Assembly.^[168][169] Within counties, there can also be incorporated towns, which do operate their own governments, and unincorporated communities, which do not. There are no further administrative subdivisions, such as villages or townships.

Over three million people, 35% of Virginians, live in the twenty jurisdictions defined as Northern Virginia, which is part of the larger Washington metropolitan area and the Northeast megalopolis.^[170][171] Fairfax County, with more than 1.1 million residents, is the most populous jurisdiction,^[172] and has a major urban business and shopping center in Tysons, Virginia's largest office market.^[173] Neighboring Prince William County is Virginia's second most populous county, with a population exceeding 450,000, and is home to Marine Corps Base Quantico, the FBI Academy and Manassas National Battlefield Park. Loudoun County, with its county seat at Leesburg, is the fastest-growing county in the state.^[172][174] Arlington County is the smallest self-governing county in the U.S. by land area,^[175] and has considered reorganizing as an independent city due to its high density.^[168]

Richmond is the capital of Virginia, and its city proper has a population of over 230,000, while its metropolitan area has over 1.3 million.^[170] As of 2021^[update], Virginia Beach is the most populous independent city in the Commonwealth, with Chesapeake and Norfolk second and third, respectively.^[176] The three are part of the larger Hampton Roads metropolitan area, which has a population over 1.7 million people and is the site of the world's largest naval base, Naval Station Norfolk.^[170][177] Suffolk, which includes a portion of the Great Dismal Swamp, is the largest city by area at 429.1 square miles (1,111 km²).^[178] In western Virginia, Roanoke city and Montgomery County, part of the Blacksburg–Christiansburg metropolitan area, both have surpassed a population of over 100,000 since 2018.^[179]

Largest Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas in Virginia U.S. Census Bureau MSA Population Estimates 2021
	Rank	Name	Pop.	Rank	Name	Pop.
Northern Virginia Hampton Roads	1	Northern Virginia	3,061,478	11	Danville	102,187	Richmond Roanoke
	2	Hampton Roads	1,726,251	12	Bristol	92,108
	3	Richmond	1,324,062	13	Martinsville	63,765
	4	Roanoke	314,496	14	Tazewell	39,925
	5	Lynchburg	262,258	15	Big Stone Gap	39,313
	6	Charlottesville	222,688
	7	Blacksburg–Christiansburg	165,293
	8	Harrisonburg	135,824
	9	Staunton–Waynesboro	125,774
	10	Winchester	145,155

Discover more about Geography related topics

Environment of Virginia

Environment of Virginia

The natural environment of Virginia encompasses the physical geography and biology of the U.S. state of Virginia. Virginia has a total area of 42,774.2 square miles (110,784.67 km2), including 3,180.13 square miles (8,236.5 km2) of water, making it the 35th-largest state by area. Forests cover 65% of the state, wetlands and water cover 6% of the land in the state, while 5% of the state is a mixture of commercial, residential, and transitional.

Blue Ridge Mountains

Blue Ridge Mountains

The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsylvania through Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. This province consists of northern and southern physiographic regions, which divide near the Roanoke River gap. To the west of the Blue Ridge, between it and the bulk of the Appalachians, lies the Great Appalachian Valley, bordered on the west by the Ridge and Valley province of the Appalachian range.

Chesapeake Bay

Chesapeake Bay

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.

Parallel 36°30′ north

Parallel 36°30′ north

The parallel 36°30′ north is a circle of latitude that is 36 and one-half degrees north of the equator of the Earth. This parallel of latitude is particularly significant in the history of the United States as the line of the Missouri Compromise, which was used to divide the prospective slave and free states west of the Mississippi River, with the exception of Missouri, which is mostly north of this parallel.

Mid-Atlantic (United States)

Mid-Atlantic (United States)

The Mid-Atlantic is a region of the United States generally located in the overlap between the Northeastern and Southeastern states. Its exact definition differs upon source, but the region typically includes seven states: Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C., the nation's capital.

Southeastern United States

Southeastern United States

The Southeastern United States, also referred to as the American Southeast or simply the Southeast, is a geographical region of the United States. It is located broadly on the eastern portion of the southern United States and the southern portion of the Eastern United States. It comprises at least a core of states on the lower East Coast of the United States and eastern Gulf Coast. Expansively, it reaches as far north as West Virginia and Maryland, which borders the Ohio River and Mason–Dixon line, and stretches as far west as Arkansas and Louisiana. There is no official U.S. government definition of the region, though various agencies and departments use different definitions.

Maryland

Maryland

Maryland is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. With a total land area of 12,407 square miles (32,130 km2), Maryland is the 8th smallest state by land area, but with a population of over 6,177,200, it ranks as the 18th most populous state and the 5th most densely populated. Baltimore is the largest city in the state, and the capital is Annapolis. Among its occasional nicknames are Old Line State, the Free State, and the Chesapeake Bay State. It is named after Henrietta Maria, the French-born queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland, who was known then in England as Mary.

Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about 106,460,000 km2 (41,100,000 sq mi). It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Africa, Europe, and Asia from the "New World" of the Americas in the European perception of the World.

North Carolina

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and South Carolina to the south, and Tennessee to the west. In the 2020 census, the state had a population of 10,439,388. Raleigh is the state's capital and Charlotte is its largest city. The Charlotte metropolitan area, with a population of 2,595,027 in 2020, is the most-populous metropolitan area in North Carolina, the 21st-most populous in the United States, and the largest banking center in the nation after New York City. The Raleigh-Durham-Cary combined statistical area is the second-largest metropolitan area in the state and 32nd-most populous in the United States, with a population of 2,043,867 in 2020, and is home to the largest research park in the United States, Research Triangle Park.

Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee, officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, Arkansas to the southwest, and Missouri to the northwest. Tennessee is geographically, culturally, and legally divided into three Grand Divisions of East, Middle, and West Tennessee. Nashville is the state's capital and largest city, and anchors its largest metropolitan area. Other major cities include Memphis, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Clarksville. Tennessee's population as of the 2020 United States census is approximately 6.9 million.

Kentucky

Kentucky

Kentucky, officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the northeast, Virginia to the east, Tennessee to the south, and Missouri to the west. Its northern border is defined by the Ohio River. Its capital is Frankfort, and its two largest cities are Louisville and Lexington. Its population was approximately 4.5 million in 2020.

Potomac River

Potomac River

The Potomac River is a major river in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States that flows from the Potomac Highlands in West Virginia to the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. It is 405 miles (652 km) long, with a drainage area of 14,700 square miles (38,000 km2), and is the fourth-largest river along the East Coast of the United States and the 21st-largest in the United States. Over 5 million people live within its watershed.

The U.S. Census Bureau found the state resident population was 8,631,393 on April 1, 2020, a 7.9% increase since the 2010 census. Another 23,149 Virginians live overseas, giving the state a total population of 8,654,542. Virginia has the fourth largest overseas population of U.S. states due to its federal employees and military personnel.^[182] The fertility rate in Virginia as of 2020^[update] was 55.8 per 1,000 females between the ages of 15 and 44,^[183] and the median age as of 2021^[update] was the same as the national average of 38.8 years old, with the oldest city by median age being James City and the youngest being Lynchburg, home to several universities.^[176] The geographic center of population was located northwest of Richmond in Hanover County, as of 2020^[update].^[184]

Though still growing naturally as births outnumber deaths, Virginia has had a negative net migration rate since 2013, with 8,995 more people leaving the state than moving to it in 2021. This is largely credited to high home prices in Northern Virginia,^[185] which are driving residents there to relocate south, and although Raleigh is their top destination, in-state migration from Northern Virginia to Richmond increased by 36% in 2020 and 2021 compared to the annual average over the previous decade.^[186][187] Aside from Virginia, the top birth state for Virginians is New York, having overtaken North Carolina in the 1990s, with the Northeast accounting for the largest number of domestic migrants into the state by region.^[188] About twelve percent of residents were born outside the United States as of 2020^[update]. El Salvador is the most common foreign country of birth, with India, South Korea, Vietnam, Ethiopia, and the Philippines as other common birthplaces.^[189]

Race and ethnicity

The state's most populous racial group, non-Hispanic whites, has declined as a proportion of the population from 76% in 1990 to 58.6% in 2020, as other ethnicities have increased.^[190][191] Immigrants from the islands of Britain and Ireland settled throughout the Commonwealth during the colonial period,^[192] a time when roughly three-fourths of immigrants came as indentured servants.^[193] Those who identify on the census as having "American ethnicity" are predominantly of English descent, but have ancestors who have been in North America for so long they choose to identify simply as American.^[194][195] The western mountains have many settlements that were founded by Scotch-Irish immigrants before the American Revolution.^[196] There are also sizable numbers of people of German descent in the northwestern mountains and Shenandoah Valley,^[197] and 10.3% of Virginians are estimated to have German ancestry, as of 2020^[update].^[198]

New citizens attend a naturalization ceremony in Northern Virginia, where 25% of residents are foreign-born, almost twice the overall state average^[189]

The largest minority group in Virginia are Blacks and African Americans, who include about one-fifth of the population.^[191] Virginia was a major destination of the Atlantic slave trade, and the first generations of enslaved men, women, and children were brought primarily from Angola and the Bight of Biafra. The Igbo ethnic group of what is now southern Nigeria were the single largest African group among slaves in Virginia.^[199] Blacks in Virginia also have more European ancestry than those in other southern states, and DNA analysis shows many have asymmetrical male and female ancestry contributions from before the Civil War, evidence of European fathers and African or Native American mothers during the time of slavery.^[200][201] Though the Black population was reduced by the Great Migration to northern industrial cities in the first half of the 20th century, since 1965 there has been a reverse migration of Blacks returning south.^[202] The Commonwealth has the highest number of Black-white interracial marriages in the United States,^[203] and 8.2% of Virginians describe themselves as multiracial.^[3]

More recent immigration in the late 20th century and early 21st century has resulted in new communities of Hispanics and Asians. As of 2020^[update], 10.5% of Virginia's total population describe themselves as Hispanic or Latino, and 8.8% as Asian.^[3] The state's Hispanic population rose by 92% from 2000 to 2010, with two-thirds of Hispanics in the state living in Northern Virginia.^[204] Northern Virginia also has a significant population of Vietnamese Americans, whose major wave of immigration followed the Vietnam War.^[205] Korean Americans have migrated more recently, attracted by the quality school system.^[206] The Filipino American community has about 45,000 in the Hampton Roads area, many of whom have ties to the U.S. Navy and armed forces.^[207]

Tribal membership in Virginia is complicated by the legacy of the state's "pencil genocide" of intentionally categorizing Native Americans and Blacks together, and many tribal members do have African and European ancestry.^[208] In 2020, the U.S. Census Bureau found that only 0.5% of Virginians were exclusively American Indian or Alaska Native, though 2.1% were in some combination with other ethnicities.^[191] The state government has extended recognition to eleven indigenous tribes resident in Virginia. Seven tribes also have federal recognition, including six that were recognized in 2018 after passage of bill named for activist Thomasina Jordan.^[209][210] The Pamunkey and Mattaponi have reservations on tributaries of the York River in the Tidewater region.^[211]

Largest race by county or city	Race and ethnicity (2020)	Alone	Total
Legend Non-Hispanic White   30–39%   40–49%   50–59%   60–69%   70–79%   80–89%   90–99% Black or African American   40–49%   50–59%   60–69%   70–79% Hispanic or Latino   40–49%	Non-Hispanic White	58.6%	62.8%
	Black or African American	18.3%	20.1%
	Hispanic or Latino (of any race)		10.5%
	Asian	7.1%	8.6%
	American Indian and Alaska Native	0.2%	1.5%
	Other	0.6%	1.5%
Largest ancestry by county or city	Ancestry (2020 est.)	Total
American Community Survey five-year estimate	Irish or Scotch-Irish	10.4%
	German	10.3%
	English	9.8%
	American	9.4%
	Subsaharan African	2.3%

Languages

According to U.S. Census data as of 2019^[update] on Virginia residents age five and older, 83.2% (6,683,027) speak English at home as a first language, while 16.8% (1,352,586) speak something other than English. Spanish is the next most commonly spoken language, with 7.6% (616,226) of Virginia households, though age is a factor, and 10.3% (139,312) of Virginians under age eighteen speak Spanish. 58.2% of Spanish speakers reported speaking English "very well," but again, of Spanish-speakers under age eighteen, 80.3% speak English "very well." Chinese languages, including Standard Mandarin and Cantonese, were the third most commonly spoken languages with around 0.8% of residents, followed by Vietnamese and Arabic, both with just over 0.7%, and then Korean and Tagalog, with 0.6% and 0.5% respectively.^[212]

English was passed as the Commonwealth's official language by statutes in 1981 and again in 1996, though the status is not mandated by the Constitution of Virginia.^[213] While a more homogenized American English is found in urban areas, various accents are also used.^[214] The Piedmont region is known for its non-rhotic dialect's strong influence on Southern American English, and a BBC America study in 2014 ranked it as one of the most identifiable accents in American English.^[215] The Tidewater accent, sometimes described as a subset of the Old Virginia accent, evolved from the language that upper-class English typically spoke in the early Colonial period, while the Appalachian accent has much more influence from the English spoken by Scottish and Irish immigrants from that time.^[214][216] The English spoken on Tangier Island in the Chesapeake Bay, preserved by the island's isolation, contains many phrases and euphemisms not found anywhere else and is said to closely resemble Elizabethan English or "Restoration English."^[217][218]

Religion

Virginia is predominantly Christian and Protestant; Baptist denominations combined to form largest group with over a quarter of the population as of 2014^[update].^[219] Baptist denominational groups in Virginia include the Baptist General Association of Virginia, with about 1,400 member churches, which supports both the Southern Baptist Convention and the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship; and the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia with more than 500 affiliated churches, which supports the Southern Baptist Convention.^[220][221] Roman Catholics are the next largest religious group with around twelve percent.^[219] The Roman Catholic Diocese of Arlington includes most of Northern Virginia's Catholic churches, while the Diocese of Richmond covers the rest of the state.

Since 1927, Arlington National Cemetery has hosted an annual nondenominational sunrise service every Easter.^[222]

The United Methodist Church, representing about six percent of Virginians, has the Virginia Conference as their regional body in most of the Commonwealth, while the Holston Conference represents much of extreme Southwest Virginia. Around five percent of Virginians attend Pentecostal churches, while around three percent attend Presbyterian churches, which are split between the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Presbyterian Church in America. The Lutheran Church, under the Virginia Synod, Congregational churches, and Episcopalian adherents each comprised less than two percent of the population as of 2014^[update].^[219] The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, Southern Virginia, and Southwestern Virginia support the various Episcopal churches.

In November 2006, fifteen conservative Episcopal churches voted to split from the Diocese of Virginia over the ordination of openly gay bishops and clergy in other dioceses of the Episcopal Church; these churches continue to claim affiliation with the larger Anglican Communion through other bodies outside the United States. Though Virginia law allows parishioners to determine their church's affiliation, the diocese claimed the secessionist churches' buildings and properties. The resulting property law case, ultimately decided in favor of the mainline diocese, was a test for Episcopal churches nationwide.^[223]

Among other religions, adherents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints constitute just over one percent of the population, with 216 congregations in Virginia as of 2022^[update].^[224] Fairfax Station is the site of the Ekoji Buddhist Temple, of the Jodo Shinshu school, and the Hindu Durga Temple. Sterling is the home of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, which, with its eleven satellite branches, considers itself the second largest Muslim mosque community in the country.^[225] While the state's Jewish population is small, organized Jewish sites date to 1789 with Congregation Beth Ahabah.^[226] Megachurches in the Commonwealth include Thomas Road Baptist Church, Immanuel Bible Church, and McLean Bible Church,^[227] and the twenty percent who describe themselves as unaffiliated also include seven percent who say religion is important to them, but may not attend regular services with formal membership.^[228] Several Christian universities are also based in the state, including Regent University, Liberty University, and the University of Lynchburg.

Discover more about Demographics related topics

1790 United States census

1790 United States census

The United States census of 1790 was the first census of the whole United States. It recorded the population of the United States as of Census Day, August 2, 1790, as mandated by Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution and applicable laws. In the first census, the population of the United States was enumerated to be 3,929,214.

1800 United States census

1800 United States census

The United States census of 1800 was the second census conducted in the United States. It was conducted on August 4, 1800. It showed that 5,308,483 people were living in the United States, of whom 893,602 were enslaved. The 1800 census included the new District of Columbia. The census for the following states were lost: Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Virginia.

1810 United States census

1810 United States census

The United States census of 1810 was the third census conducted in the United States. It was conducted on August 6, 1810. It showed that 7,239,881 people were living in the United States, of whom 1,191,362 were slaves.

1820 United States census

1820 United States census

The United States census of 1820 was the fourth census conducted in the United States. It was conducted on August 7, 1820. The 1820 census included six new states: Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama and Maine. There has been a district wide loss of 1820 census records for Arkansas Territory, Missouri Territory and New Jersey.

1830 United States census

1830 United States census

The United States census of 1830, the fifth census undertaken in the United States, was conducted on June 1, 1830. The only loss of census records for 1830 involved some countywide losses in Massachusetts, Maryland, and Mississippi.

1840 United States census

1840 United States census

The United States census of 1840 was the sixth census of the United States. Conducted by the Census Office on June 1, 1840, it determined the resident population of the United States to be 17,069,453 – an increase of 32.7 percent over the 12,866,020 persons enumerated during the 1830 census. The total population included 2,487,355 slaves. In 1840, the center of population was about 260 miles (418 km) west of Washington, near Weston, Virginia.

1850 United States census

1850 United States census

The United States census of 1850 was the seventh census of the United States. Conducted by the Census Office, it determined the resident population of the United States to be 23,191,876—an increase of 35.9 percent over the 17,069,453 persons enumerated during the 1840 census. The total population included 3,204,313 slaves.

1860 United States census

1860 United States census

The United States census of 1860 was the eighth census conducted in the United States starting June 1, 1860, and lasting five months. It determined the population of the United States to be 31,443,322 in 33 states and 10 organized territories. This was an increase of 35.4 percent over the 23,069,876 persons enumerated during the 1850 census. The total population included 3,953,762 slaves.

1870 United States census

1870 United States census

The United States census of 1870 was the ninth United States census. It was conducted by the Census Bureau from June 1, 1870, to August 23, 1871. The 1870 census was the first census to provide detailed information on the African American population, only five years after the culmination of the Civil War when slaves were granted freedom. The total population was 38,925,598 with a resident population of 38,558,371 individuals, a 22.6% increase from 1860.

1880 United States census

1880 United States census

The United States census of 1880 conducted by the Census Bureau during June 1880 was the tenth United States census. It was the first time that women were permitted to be enumerators. The Superintendent of the Census was Francis Amasa Walker. This was the first census in which a city—New York City—recorded a population of over one million.

1890 United States census

1890 United States census

The United States census of 1890 was taken beginning June 2, 1890, but most of the 1890 census materials were destroyed in 1921 when a building caught fire and in the subsequent disposal of the remaining damaged records. It determined the resident population of the United States to be 62,979,766—an increase of 25.5 percent over the 50,189,209 persons enumerated during the 1880 census. The data reported that the distribution of the population had resulted in the disappearance of the American frontier.

1900 United States census

1900 United States census

The United States census of 1900, conducted by the Census Office on June 1, 1900, determined the resident population of the United States to be 76,212,168, an increase of 21.01% from the 62,979,766 persons enumerated during the 1890 census.

Virginia counties and cities by median household income (2015–2019)

Virginia's economy has diverse sources of income, including local and federal government, military, farming and high-tech. The state's average per capita income was $66,305 in 2021, the 12th-highest nationwide,^[229] and the gross domestic product (GDP) was $654.5 billion in 2022, the 13th-largest among U.S. states.^[230] Prior to the COVID-19 recession, in March 2020, Virginia had 4.36 million people employed with an unemployment rate of 2.9%,^[231] but jobless claims due to the virus soared over 10% in early April 2020,^[232] before leaving off around 5% in November 2020.^[233] In January 2023, it was 3.2%, which was the 23rd-lowest nationwide.^[234]

Virginia had a median household income of $80,615 in 2021, 11th-highest nationwide, and a poverty rate of 10.2%, 10th-lowest nationwide.^[3] Montgomery County outside Blacksburg has the highest poverty rate in the state, with 28.5% falling below the U.S. Census poverty thresholds.^[235] The Hampton Roads region has the state's highest per capita number of homeless individuals, with 11 per 10,000, as of 2020^[update].^[236] Loudoun County meanwhile has the highest median household income in the nation, and the wider Northern Virginia region is among the highest-income regions nationwide.^[235] As of 2022^[update], seven of the twenty-five highest-income counties in the United States, including the two highest, are located in Northern Virginia.^[237] Though the Gini index shows Virginia has less income inequality than the national average,^[238] the state's middle class is also smaller than the majority of states.^[239]

Virginia's business environment has been ranked highly by various publications. After two years as number one, CNBC ranked Virginia third in their 2022 Top States for Business, with its deductions being mainly for the high cost of living,^[240] while Forbes magazine ranked it as the eighteenth best to start a business in.^[241] Additionally, in 2014 a survey of 12,000 small business owners found Virginia to be one of the most friendly states for small businesses.^[242] Oxfam America however ranked Virginia in 2022^[update] as only the 22nd-best state to work in, with pluses for new worker protections from sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination, but negatives for laws on organized labor and the low tipped employee minimum wage of $2.13.^[243] Virginia has been an employment-at-will state since 1906 and a "right to work" state since 1947,^[244][245] and though state minimum wage increased to $12 in 2023, farm and tipped workers are specifically excluded.^[246][243]

Government agencies

The Department of Defense is headquartered in Arlington at the Pentagon, the world's largest office building.^[247]

Government agencies directly employ around 714,100 Virginians as of 2022^[update], almost 17% of all employees in the state.^[248] Approximately 12% of all U.S. federal procurement money is spent in Virginia, the second-highest amount after California.^[249][250] As of 2020^[update], 125,648 active-duty personnel, 25,404 reservists, and 99,832 civilians work directly for the U.S. Department of Defense at the Pentagon or one of 27 military bases in the state, representing all major branches and covering 270,009 acres (1,092.69 km²).^[251] Another 139,000 Virginians work for defense contracting firms,^[252] which received $44.8 billion worth of contracts in the 2020 fiscal year.^[251] Virginia has the second highest concentration of veterans of any state with 9.7% of the population, as many stay in the state and the Hampton Roads area in particular, which is home to world's largest navy base and only NATO station on U.S. soil.^[253][251]

Other large federal agencies in Northern Virginia include the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, the National Science Foundation and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Alexandria, the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in Bailey's Crossroads. Virginia's state government employs over 106,000 public employees, who combined have a median income of $52,401 as of 2018^[update],^[254] with the Departments of Education and of Transportation being the largest by expenditure.^[255]

Business

Ocean tourism is an important sector of Virginia Beach's economy.

Based on data as of 2020^[update], Virginia is home to 204,131 separate employers plus 644,341 sole proprietorships. Of the 144,431 registered non-farm businesses in 2017^[update], 59.4% are majority male-owned, 22% are majority female-owned, 19.6% are majority minority-owned, and 8.9% are veteran-owned.^[3] Twenty-one Fortune 500 companies are headquartered in Virginia as of 2022^[update], with the largest companies by revenue being Freddie Mac, General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman, and Capital One.^[256] The largest by their number of employees are Dollar Tree in Chesapeake and Hilton Worldwide Holdings in McLean.^[257]

Virginia has the third highest concentration of technology workers and the fifth highest overall number among U.S. states as of 2020^[update], with the 451,268 tech jobs accounting for 11.1% of all jobs in the state and earning a median salary of $98,292.^[258] Many of these jobs are in Northern Virginia, which hosts a large number of software, communications, and cybersecurity companies, particularly in the Dulles Technology Corridor and Tysons Corner areas. Amazon additionally selected Crystal City for its HQ2 in 2018, while Google expanded their Reston offices in 2019.

Virginia became the world's largest data center market in 2016, with Loudoun County specifically branding itself "Data Center Alley" due to the roughly 13.5 million square feet (1.25 km²) in use for data.^[259][260] Data centers in Virginia handled around one-third of all internet traffic and directly employed 13,500 Virginians in 2023 and supported 45,000 total jobs.^[261] In 2022, the state ranked fourth for fastest average internet download speeds in the United States, with 139.6 Mbit/s,^[262] and seventh in the percent of households with broadband access, at 92.9%.^[263] Computer chips first became the state's highest-grossing export in 2006,^[264] and had an estimated export value of $740 million in 2022.^[265] Though in the top quartile for diversity based on the Simpson index, only 26% of tech employees in Virginia are women, and only 13% are Black or African American.^[258]

Tourism in Virginia supported an estimated 234,000 jobs in 2018, making tourism the state's fifth largest industry. It generated $26 billion, an increase of 4.4% from 2017.^[266] The state was eighth nationwide in domestic travel spending in 2018, with Arlington County the top tourist destination in the state by domestic spending, followed by Fairfax County, Loudoun County, and Virginia Beach.^[267] Virginia also saw 1.1 million international tourists in 2018, a five percent increase from 2017.^[268]

Agriculture

Rockingham County accounts for twenty percent of Virginia's agricultural sales as of 2017^[update].^[269]

As of 2017^[update], agriculture occupied 28% of the land in Virginia with 7.8 million acres (12,188 sq mi; 31,565 km²) of farmland. Nearly 54,000 Virginians work on the state's 43,225 farms, which average 181 acres (0.28 sq mi; 0.73 km²). Though agriculture has declined significantly since 1960 when there were twice as many farms, it remains the largest single industry in Virginia, providing for over 334,000 jobs.^[270] Soybeans were the most profitable single crop in Virginia in 2021, ahead of corn and cut flowers as other leading agricultural products.^[271] However, the ongoing China-U.S. trade war led many Virginia farmers to plant cotton instead of soybeans in 2019.^[272] Though it is no longer the primary crop, Virginia is still the third-largest producer of tobacco in the United States.^[270]

Virginia is also the country's third-largest producer of seafood as of 2018^[update], with sea scallops, oysters, Chesapeake blue crabs, menhaden, and hardshell clams as the largest seafood harvests by value, and France, Canada, and Hong Kong as the top export destinations.^[273][274] Commercial fishing supports 18,220 jobs as of 2020^[update], while recreation fishing supports another 5,893.^[275] Eastern oyster harvests had increased from 23,000 bushels in 2001 to over 500,000 in 2013,^[276] but fell to 248,347 in 2019 because of low salinity in coastal waters due to heavy spring rains.^[277] Those same rains however made 2019 a record wine harvest for vineyards in the Northern Neck and along the Blue Ridge Mountains, which also attract 2.3 million tourists annually.^[278][279] Virginia has the seventh-highest number of wineries in the nation, with 356 producing 1.1 million cases a year as of 2023^[update].^[280] Cabernet franc and Chardonnay are the most grown varieties.^[281]

Taxes

State income tax is collected from those with incomes above a filing threshold; there are five income brackets, with rates ranging from 2.0% to 5.75% of taxable income.^[282][283] The state sales and use tax rate is 4.3%. There is an additional 1% local tax, for a total of a 5.3% combined sales tax on most Virginia purchases. The sales tax rate is higher in three regions: Northern Virginia (6%), Hampton Roads (6%) and the Historic Triangle (7%).^[284] Unlike the majority of states, Virginia has a sales tax on groceries, but at a lower rate than the general sales tax.^[285] The sales tax for food and certain essential personal hygiene goods was lowered to 1% in January 2023.^[284][286]

Virginia's property tax is set and collected at the local government level and varies throughout the Commonwealth. Real estate is also taxed at the local level based on one hundred percent of fair market value.^[287] As of fiscal year 2018, the median real estate tax rate per $100 of assessed taxable value was $1.07 for cities, $0.67 for counties, and $0.17 for towns; town rates are lower because towns (unlike cities) have a narrow range of responsibilities and are subordinate to counties.^[288] Of local government tax revenue, about 61% is generated from real property taxes; about 24% from tangible personal property, sales and use, and business license tax; and 15% from other taxes (such as restaurant meal taxes, public service corporation property tax, consumer utility tax, and hotel tax).^[289]

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Economy of Virginia

Economy of Virginia

The economy of the Commonwealth of Virginia is well balanced with diverse sources of income. From the Hampton Roads area to Richmond and down to Lee County in the southwest includes military installations, cattle, tobacco and peanut farming in Southside Virginia. Tomatoes recently surpassed soy as the most profitable crop in Virginia. Tobacco, peanuts and hay are also important agricultural products from the commonwealth. Wineries and vineyards in the Northern Neck and along the Blue Ridge Mountains also have become increasingly popular. Northern Virginia hosts software, communications, consulting, defense contracting, diplomats, and considerable components of the professional government sector. As of the 2000 census, Virginia had the highest number of counties and independent cities (15) in the top 100 wealthiest jurisdictions in the United States based upon median income, in addition, Virginia tied with Colorado as having the most counties (10) in the top 100 based on per capita income. Loudoun and Fairfax counties in Northern Virginia have the highest and second highest median household income, respectively, of all counties in the United States as of 2017.

List of U.S. states and territories by income

List of U.S. states and territories by income

This is a list of U.S. states, territories and the District of Columbia by income. Data is given according to the 2019 American Community Survey (ACS) 1-Year Estimates, except for the American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, for which the data comes from 2010, as ACS does not operate in these areas.

Gross domestic product

Gross domestic product

Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold in a specific time period by a country or countries, generally "without double counting the intermediate goods and services used up to produce them". GDP is most often used by the government of a single country to measure its economic health. Due to its complex and subjective nature, this measure is often revised before being considered a reliable indicator. GDP (nominal) per capita does not, however, reflect differences in the cost of living and the inflation rates of the countries; therefore, using a basis of GDP per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) may be more useful when comparing living standards between nations, while nominal GDP is more useful comparing national economies on the international market. Total GDP can also be broken down into the contribution of each industry or sector of the economy. The ratio of GDP to the total population of the region is the per capita GDP.

List of U.S. states and territories by GDP

List of U.S. states and territories by GDP

This is a list of U.S. states and territories by Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This article presents the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia and their nominal GDP at current prices.

COVID-19 recession

COVID-19 recession

The COVID-19 recession is an ongoing global economic recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The recession began in most countries in February 2020.

List of U.S. states and territories by poverty rate

List of U.S. states and territories by poverty rate

This list of U.S. states and territories by poverty rate covers the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and the territory of Puerto Rico and their populations' poverty rate. The four other inhabited U.S. territories are listed separately.

Blacksburg, Virginia

Blacksburg, Virginia

Blacksburg is an incorporated town in Montgomery County, Virginia, with a population of 44,826 at the 2020 census. Blacksburg, as well as the surrounding county, is dominated economically and demographically by the presence of Virginia Tech.

Hampton Roads

Hampton Roads

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.

Loudoun County, Virginia

Loudoun County, Virginia

Loudoun County is in the northern part of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. In 2020, the census returned a population of 420,959, making it Virginia's third-most populous county. Loudoun County's seat is Leesburg. Loudoun County is part of the Washington–Arlington–Alexandria, DC–VA–MD–WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of 2020, Loudoun County had a median household income of $147,111. Since 2008, the county has been ranked first in the U.S. in median household income among jurisdictions with a population of 65,000 or more.

CNBC

CNBC

CNBC is an American basic cable business news channel and website. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk shows, investigative reports, documentaries, infomercials, reality shows, and other programs at all other times. Along with Fox Business and Bloomberg Television, it is one of the three major business news channels. It also operates a website and mobile apps, whereby users can watch the channel via streaming media, and which provide some content that is only accessible to paid subscribers. CNBC content is available on demand on smart speakers including Amazon Echo devices with Amazon Alexa, Google Home and app devices with Google Assistant, and on Apple Siri voice interfaces including iPhones. Many CNBC TV shows are available as podcasts for on-demand listening. Graphics are designed by Sweden-based Magoo 3D studios.

America's Top States For Business

America's Top States For Business

America's Top States For Business CNBC, a division of NBC Universal, has been ranking state business climates annually since 2007. According to information compiled by CNBC, both from private industry sources, as well as State and Federal agencies, there have been increases and decreases in many U.S State's economies. Specifically, there have been sizable changes in state population, state GDP per capita, unemployment rates, foreclosure rates, budget gaps, and corporate tax rates. CNBC's state rankings are based on 10 categories: Cost of Doing Business, Workforce, Quality of Life, Infrastructure, Economy, Education, Technology & Innovation, Business, Friendliness, Access to Capital, and Cost of Living.

Forbes

Forbes

Forbes is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. Forbes also reports on related subjects such as technology, communications, science, politics, and law. It is based in Jersey City, New Jersey. Competitors in the national business magazine category include Fortune and Bloomberg Businessweek. Forbes has an international edition in Asia as well as editions produced under license in 27 countries and regions worldwide.

Colonial Virginian culture, language, and style are reenacted in Williamsburg.

Modern Virginian culture has many sources, and is part of the culture of the Southern United States.^[290] The Smithsonian Institution divides Virginia into nine cultural regions, and in 2007 used their annual Folklife Festival to recognize the substantial contributions of England and Senegal on Virginian culture.^[291] Virginia's culture was popularized and spread across America and the South by figures such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Robert E. Lee. Their homes in Virginia represent the birthplace of America and the South.^[292]

Besides the general cuisine of the Southern United States, Virginians maintain their own particular traditions. Virginia wine is made in many parts of the Commonwealth.^[279] Smithfield ham, sometimes called "Virginia ham", is a type of country ham which is protected by state law, and can be produced only in the town of Smithfield.^[293] Virginia furniture and architecture are typical of American colonial architecture. Thomas Jefferson and many of the Commonwealth's early leaders favored the Neoclassical architecture style, leading to its use for important state buildings. The Pennsylvania Dutch and their style can also be found in parts of the Commonwealth.^[197]

Literature in Virginia often deals with the Commonwealth's extensive and sometimes troubled past. The works of Pulitzer Prize winner Ellen Glasgow often dealt with social inequalities and the role of women in her culture.^[294] Glasgow's peer and close friend James Branch Cabell wrote extensively about the changing position of gentry in the Reconstruction era, and challenged its moral code with Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice.^[295] William Styron approached history in works such as The Confessions of Nat Turner and Sophie's Choice.^[296] Tom Wolfe has occasionally dealt with his southern heritage in bestsellers like I Am Charlotte Simmons.^[297] Mount Vernon native Matt Bondurant received critical acclaim for his historic novel The Wettest County in the World about moonshiners in Franklin County during prohibition.^[298] Virginia also names a state Poet Laureate.^[299]

Fine and performing arts

Americana Roots Folk Rock band The Steel Wheels play at the Jefferson Theater in Charlottesville

Virginia ranks near the middle of U.S. states in terms of public spending on the arts as of 2021^[update], at just over half of the national average.^[300] The state government does fund some institutions, including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Science Museum of Virginia. Other museums include the popular Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum and the Chrysler Museum of Art.^[301] Besides these sites, many open-air museums are located in the Commonwealth, such as Colonial Williamsburg, the Frontier Culture Museum, and various historic battlefields.^[302] The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities works to improve the Commonwealth's civic, cultural, and intellectual life.^[303]

Theaters and venues in the Commonwealth are found both in the cities and in suburbs. The Harrison Opera House, in Norfolk, is home of the Virginia Opera. The Virginia Symphony Orchestra operates in and around Hampton Roads.^[304] Resident and touring theater troupes operate from the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton.^[305] The Barter Theatre in Abingdon, designated the State Theatre of Virginia, won the first Regional Theatre Tony Award in 1948, while the Signature Theatre in Arlington won it in 2009. There is also a Children's Theater of Virginia, Theatre IV, which is the second largest touring troupe nationwide.^[306] Notable music performance venues include The Birchmere, the Landmark Theater, and Jiffy Lube Live.^[307] Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts is located in Vienna and is the only national park intended for use as a performing arts center.^[308]

Virginia is known for its tradition in the music genres of old-time string and bluegrass, with groups such as the Carter Family and Stanley Brothers.^[309] The state's African tradition is found through gospel, blues, and shout bands, with both Ella Fitzgerald and Pearl Bailey coming from Newport News.^[310] Contemporary Virginia is also known for folk rock artists like Dave Matthews and Jason Mraz, hip hop stars like Pharrell Williams, Missy Elliott and Pusha T, as well as thrash metal groups like GWAR and Lamb of God.^[311] Several members of country music band Old Dominion grew up in the Roanoke area, and took their band name from Virginia's state nickname.^[312]

Festivals

The annual Pony Penning features more than two hundred wild ponies swimming across the Assateague Channel into Chincoteague.

Many counties and localities host county fairs and festivals. The Virginia State Fair is held at the Meadow Event Park every September. Also in September is the Neptune Festival in Virginia Beach, which celebrates the city, the waterfront, and regional artists. Norfolk's Harborfest, in June, features boat racing and air shows.^[313] Fairfax County also sponsors Celebrate Fairfax! with popular and traditional music performances.^[314] The Virginia Lake Festival is held during the third weekend in July in Clarksville.^[315] On the Eastern Shore island of Chincoteague the annual Pony Penning of feral Chincoteague ponies at the end of July is a unique local tradition expanded into a week-long carnival.^[316]

The Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival is a six-day festival held annually in Winchester which includes parades and bluegrass concerts. The Old Time Fiddlers' Convention in Galax, begun in 1935, is one of the oldest and largest such events worldwide, and Wolf Trap hosts the Wolf Trap Opera Company, which produces an opera festival every summer.^[308] The Blue Ridge Rock Festival has operated since 2017, and has brought as many as 33,000 concert-goers to the Blue Ridge Amphitheater in Pittsylvania County.^[317] Two important film festivals, the Virginia Film Festival and the VCU French Film Festival, are held annually in Charlottesville and Richmond, respectively.^[318]

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Culture of Virginia

Culture of Virginia

The Culture of Virginia refers to the distinct human activities and values that take place in, or originate from the Commonwealth of Virginia. Virginia's historic culture was popularized and spread across America by Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, and their homes represent Virginia as the birthplace of America. Modern Virginia culture has many heritages, and is largely part of the culture of the Southern United States, however, Northern Virginia has become increasingly similar in culture to the Northeastern United States within the past few decades.

Colonial Williamsburg

Colonial Williamsburg

Colonial Williamsburg is a living-history museum and private foundation presenting a part of the historic district in the city of Williamsburg, Virginia. Its 301-acre (122 ha) historic area includes several hundred restored or recreated buildings from the 18th century, when the city was the capital of the Colony of Virginia; 17th-century, 19th-century, and Colonial Revival structures; and more recent reconstructions. The historic area includes three main thoroughfares and their connecting side streets that attempt to suggest the atmosphere and the circumstances of 18th-century Americans. Costumed employees work and dress as people did in the era, sometimes using colonial grammar and diction.

Culture of the Southern United States

Culture of the Southern United States

The culture of the Southern United States, Southern culture, or Southern heritage, is a subculture of the United States. From its many cultural influences, the South developed its own unique customs, dialects, arts, literature, cuisine, dance, and music. The combination of its unique history and the fact that many Southerners maintain—and even nurture—an identity separate from the rest of the country has led to it being the most studied and written-about region of the U.S.

England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea area of the Atlantic Ocean to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.

Senegal

Senegal

Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is a country in West Africa, on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. Senegal is bordered by Mauritania to the north, Mali to the east, Guinea to the southeast and Guinea-Bissau to the southwest. Senegal nearly surrounds the Gambia, a country occupying a narrow sliver of land along the banks of the Gambia River, which separates Senegal's southern region of Casamance from the rest of the country. Senegal also shares a maritime border with Cape Verde. Senegal's economic and political capital is Dakar.

George Washington

George Washington

George Washington was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot forces to victory in the American Revolutionary War and served as president of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which created and ratified the Constitution of the United States and the American federal government. Washington has been called the "Father of his Country" for his manifold leadership in the nation's founding.

Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee

Robert Edward Lee was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, towards the end of which he was appointed the overall commander of the Confederate States Army. He led the Army of Northern Virginia—the Confederacy's most powerful army—from 1862 until its surrender in 1865, earning a reputation as a skilled tactician.

Cuisine of the Southern United States

Cuisine of the Southern United States

The cuisine of the Southern United States encompasses diverse food traditions of several regions, including Tidewater, Appalachian, Lowcountry, Cajun, Creole, and Floribbean cuisine. In recent history, elements of Southern cuisine have spread to other parts the United States, influencing other types of American cuisine.

Country ham

Country ham

Country ham is a variety of heavily salted ham preserved by curing and smoking, associated with the cuisine of the Southern United States.

Geographical indication

Geographical indication

A geographical indication (GI) is a name or sign used on products which corresponds to a specific geographical location or origin. The use of a geographical indication, as an indication of the product's source, is intended as a certification that the product possesses certain qualities, is made according to traditional methods, or enjoys a good reputation due to its geographical origin.

American colonial architecture

American colonial architecture

American colonial architecture includes several building design styles associated with the colonial period of the United States, including First Period English (late-medieval), French Colonial, Spanish Colonial, Dutch Colonial, and Georgian. These styles are associated with the houses, churches and government buildings of the period from about 1600 through the 19th century.

Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing styles of architecture in most of Europe for the previous two centuries, Renaissance architecture and Baroque architecture, already represented partial revivals of the Classical architecture of ancient Rome and ancient Greek architecture, but the Neoclassical movement aimed to strip away the excesses of Late Baroque and return to a purer and more authentic classical style, adapted to modern purposes.

The Virginia State Capitol, designed by Thomas Jefferson and Charles-Louis Clérisseau, is home to the Virginia General Assembly.

In 1619, the first Virginia General Assembly met at Jamestown Church, and included 22 locally elected representatives, making Virginia's legislature the oldest of its kind in North America.^[319] The elected members became the House of Burgesses in 1642, and governed with the Governor's Council, which was appointed by the British monarchy, until Virginians declared their independence from Britain in 1776. The current General Assembly is the 162nd since that year. The government today functions under the seventh Constitution of Virginia, which was approved by voters in 1970 went into effect in July 1971.^[77] It is similar to the federal structure in that it provides for three branches: a strong legislature, an executive, and a unified judicial system.^[320]

Virginia's legislature is bicameral with a 100-member House of Delegates and 40-member Senate, who together write the laws for the Commonwealth. Delegates serve two-year terms, while senators serve four-year terms, with the next scheduled elections for both taking place in November 2023. The executive department includes the governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general, who are elected every four years in separate elections, with the most recent taking place in November 2021. The governor must be at least thirty years old and incumbent governors cannot run for re-election, however the lieutenant governor and attorney general can, and governors can and have served non-consecutive terms.^[321] The lieutenant governor is the official head of the Senate, and is responsible for breaking ties. The House elects a Speaker of the House and the Senate elects a President pro tempore, who presides when the lieutenant governor isn't present, and both houses elect a clerk and majority and minority leaders.^[322] The governor also nominates their eleven cabinet members and others who head various state departments.

State budgets are biannual and proposed by the governor in even years.^[323] Based on data through 2018, the Pew Center on the States found Virginia's government to be above average in running surpluses,^[324] and U.S. News & World Report ranked the state eighteenth in fiscal stability.^[325] The legislature starts regular sessions on the second Wednesday of every year, which meet for up to 48 days in odd years and 60 days in even years to allow more time for the state budget.^[322] After regular sessions end, special sessions can be called either by the governor or with agreement of two-thirds of both houses, and nineteen special sessions have been called since 2000, typically for legislation on preselected issues.^[326] Though not a full-time legislature, the Assembly is classified as a hybrid because special sessions are not limited by the state constitution and often last several months.^[327]

Judicial system

Unlike the federal judiciary system, justices of the Virginia Supreme Court have term limits, a mandatory retirement age, and select their own Chief Justice.

The judges and justices who make up Virginia's judicial system, also the oldest in America, are elected by a majority vote in both the House and Senate without input from the governor, one way Virginia's legislature is stronger than its executive. The system consists of a hierarchy from the Supreme Court of Virginia and the Court of Appeals of Virginia to the Circuit Courts, the trial courts of general jurisdiction, and the lower General District Courts and Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Courts.^[328] The Supreme Court has seven justices who serve twelve-year terms, with a mandatory retirement age of 73. The Supreme Court selects its own Chief Justice from among their seven members, who is informally limited to two four-year terms.^[329] Virginia was the last state to guarantee an automatic right of appeal for all civil and criminal cases, and their Court of Appeals increased from eleven to seventeen judges in 2021.^[330][331]

The Code of Virginia is the statutory law, and consists of the codified legislation of the General Assembly. Virginia has no "pocket veto," and bills will become law if the governor chooses to neither approve nor veto legislation.^[332] The largest law enforcement agency in Virginia is the Virginia State Police, with 3,022 sworn and civilian members as of 2018^[update].^[333] The Virginia Marine Police patrol coastal areas, and were founded as the "Oyster Navy" in 1864 in response to oyster bed poaching.^[334] The Virginia Capitol Police protect the legislature and executive department, and are the oldest police department in the United States, dating to the guards who protected the colonial leadership.^[335] The governor can also call upon the Virginia National Guard, which consists of approximately 7,200 army soldiers, 1,200 airmen, 300 Defense Force members, and 400 civilians.^[336]

The death penalty was abolished in 2021. Over 1,300 people have been executed by the state since 1608, including 113 following the resumption of capital punishment in 1982.^[337] Virginia's prison system incarcerates 30,936 people as of 2018^[update], 53% of whom are Black,^[338] and the state has the sixteenth-highest rate of incarceration in the country, at 422 per 100,000 residents.^[339] Prisoner parole was ended in 1995,^[340] and Virginia's rate of recidivism of released felons who are re-convicted within three years and sentenced to a year or more is 23.1%, the lowest in the country as of 2019^[update].^[341][342] Virginia has the fourth lowest violent crime rate and thirteenth lowest property crime rate as of 2018^[update].^[343] Between 2008 and 2017, arrests for drug-related crimes rose 38%, with 71% of those related to marijuana,^[344] which Virginia decriminalized in July 2020 and legalized in July 2021.^[345][346]

Discover more about Law and government related topics

Government of Virginia

Government of Virginia

The government of Virginia combines the executive, legislative and judicial branches of authority in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The current governor of Virginia is Glenn Youngkin. The State Capitol building in Richmond was designed by Thomas Jefferson, and the cornerstone was laid by Governor Patrick Henry in 1785. Virginia currently functions under the 1971 Constitution of Virginia. It is Virginia's seventh constitution. Under the Constitution, the government is composed of three branches: the legislative, the executive and the judicial.

Charles-Louis Clérisseau

Charles-Louis Clérisseau

Charles-Louis Clérisseau was a French architect, draughtsman, antiquary, and artist who became a leading authority on ancient Roman architecture and Roman ruins in Italy and France. With his influence extending to Russia, England, and the United States, and clients including Catherine the Great and Thomas Jefferson, Clérisseau played a key role in the genesis of neoclassical architecture during the second half of the 18th century.

Jamestown Church

Jamestown Church

Jamestown Church, constructed in brick from 1639 onward, in Jamestown in the Mid-Atlantic state of Virginia, is one of the oldest surviving building remnants built by Europeans in the original Thirteen Colonies and in the United States overall. It is now part of Historic Jamestown, and is owned by Preservation Virginia. There have been several sites and stages in the church's history, and its later tower is now the last surviving above-ground structure from the days when Jamestown was the capital of Virginia. The current structure, active as part of the Continuing Anglican movement, is still in use today. The ruins are currently being researched by members of the Jamestown Rediscovery project.

House of Burgesses

House of Burgesses

The House of Burgesses was the elected representative element of the Virginia General Assembly, the legislative body of the Colony of Virginia. With the creation of the House of Burgesses in 1642, the General Assembly, which had been established in 1619, became a bicameral institution.

162nd Virginia General Assembly

162nd Virginia General Assembly

The 162nd Virginia General Assembly, consisting of members who were elected in both the House election in 2021 and the Senate election in 2019, convened on January 12, 2022. The legislature is the first since the 156th Assembly ended in 2012 to be of divided party control, with Republicans again controlling the House of Delegates and Democrats holding the Senate.

Constitution of Virginia

Constitution of Virginia

The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia is the document that defines and limits the powers of the state government and the basic rights of the citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Like all other state constitutions, it is supreme over Virginia's laws and acts of government, though it may be superseded by the United States Constitution and U.S. federal law as per the Supremacy Clause.

1970 Virginia ballot measures

1970 Virginia ballot measures

The 1970 Virginia State Elections took place on Election Day, November 3, 1970, the same day as the U.S. Senate and U.S. House elections in the state. The only statewide elections on the ballot were four constitutional referendums to amend the Virginia State Constitution. All referendums were referred to the voters by the Virginia General Assembly.

Federal government of the United States

Federal government of the United States

The federal government of the United States is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a federal district, five major self-governing territories and several island possessions. The federal government, sometimes simply referred to as Washington, is composed of three distinct branches: legislative, executive, and judicial, whose powers are vested by the U.S. Constitution in the Congress, the president and the federal courts, respectively. The powers and duties of these branches are further defined by acts of Congress, including the creation of executive departments and courts inferior to the Supreme Court.

Separation of powers

Separation of powers

Separation of powers refers to the division of a state's government into "branches", each with separate, independent powers and responsibilities, so that the powers of one branch are not in conflict with those of the other branches. The typical division into three branches of government, sometimes called the trias politica model, includes a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary. It can be contrasted with the fusion of powers in parliamentary and semi-presidential systems where there can be overlap in membership and functions between different branches, especially the executive and legislative. In most non-authoritarian jurisdictions, however, the judiciary almost never overlaps with the other branches, whether powers in the jurisdiction are separated or fused.

2023 Virginia elections

2023 Virginia elections

The 2023 Virginia elections will take place on November 7, 2023. All 40 seats of the Senate of Virginia and 100 seats in the Virginia House of Delegates will be up for election, as were many local offices.

Governor of Virginia

Governor of Virginia

The governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia serves as the head of government of Virginia for a four-year term. The incumbent, Glenn Youngkin, was sworn in on January 15, 2022.

Lieutenant Governor of Virginia

Lieutenant Governor of Virginia

The lieutenant governor of Virginia is a constitutional officer of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The lieutenant governor is elected every four years along with the governor and attorney general.

Mirroring Virginia's political transition, the annual Shad Planking event in Wakefield has evolved from a vestige of the Byrd era into a regular stop for many state campaigns.^[347]

Over the past century, Virginia has shifted politically from being a largely rural, conservative, Southern bloc member to a state that is more urbanized, pluralistic, and politically moderate, as both greater enfranchisement and demographic shifts have changed the electorate. Up until the 1970s, Virginia was a racially divided one-party state dominated by the Byrd Organization.^[348] They sought to stymie the political power of Northern Virginia, perpetuate segregation, and successfully restricted voter registration such that between 1905 and 1948, roughly one-third of votes in the state were cast by state employees and officeholders themselves, and voter turnout was regularly below ten percent.^[349][350] The organization used malapportionment to manipulate what areas were over-represented in the General Assembly and the U.S. Congress until ordered to end the practice by the 1964 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Davis v. Mann and the 1965 Virginia Supreme Court decision in Wilkins v. Davis respectively.^[351]

Enforcement of federal civil rights legislation passed in the mid-1960s helped overturn the state's Jim Crow laws that effectively disfranchised African Americans.^[352] The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made Virginia one of nine states that were required to receive federal approval for changes to voting laws, until the system for including states was struck down in 2013.^[353] A strict photo identification requirement, added under Governor Bob McDonnell in 2014, was repealed in 2020,^[354] and the Voting Rights Act of Virginia was passed in 2021, requiring preclearance from the state Attorney General for local election changes that could result in disenfranchisement, including closing or moving polling sites.^[355] Though many Jim Crow provisions were removed in Virginia's 1971 constitution, a lifetime ban on voting for felony convictions was unchanged, and by 2016, up to twenty percent of African Americans in Virginia were disenfranchised because of prior felonies.^[356] That year, Governor Terry McAuliffe ended the lifetime ban and individually restored voting rights to over 200,000 ex-felons.^[349] These changes moved Virginia from being ranked as the second most difficult state to vote in in 2016, to the twelfth easiest to in 2020.^[357]

Regional differences also play a large part in Virginia politics. While urban and expanding suburban areas, including much of Northern Virginia, form the modern Democratic Party base, rural southern and western areas moved to support the Republican Party in response to its "southern strategy" starting around 1970.^[358][359] Rural Democratic support has nevertheless persisted in union-influenced Roanoke in Southwest Virginia, college towns such as Charlottesville and Blacksburg, and the southeastern Black Belt Region.^[360] African Americans are the most reliable bloc of Democratic voters,^[352] but educational attainment and gender have also become strong indicators of political alignment, with the majority of women in Virginia supporting Democratic presidential candidates since 1980.^[361] International immigration and domestic migration into Virginia have also increased the proportion of eligible voters born outside the state from 44% in 1980 to 55% in 2019.^[362]

State elections

2021 Virginia House of Delegates election results:

  Republican hold (45 seats)

  Republican gain (7 seats)

  Democratic hold (48 seats)

State elections in Virginia occur in odd-numbered years, with executive department elections occurring in years following U.S. presidential elections and Senate elections occurring in the years prior to presidential elections, as both have four-year terms. House of Delegates elections take place concurrent with each of those elections as delegates have two-year terms. National politics often play a role in state election outcomes, and Virginians have elected governors of the party opposite the U.S. president in eleven of the last twelve contests, with only Terry McAuliffe beating the trend in 2013.^[363][364] McAuliffe, a Democrat, was elected during Barack Obama's second presidential term.^[365] Republicans at that time held a supermajority of seats in the House of Delegates, which they had first gained in the 2011 state elections,^[366] and a one-vote majority the state senate, both of which they maintained in the 2015 elections.^[367] The 2011 and 2015 elections also had the lowest voter turnout in recent history, with just 28.6% and 29.1% of registered voters participating respectively.^[368]

The 2017 state elections resulted in Democrats holding the three executive offices, with outgoing lieutenant governor Ralph Northam winning the governorship, Justin Fairfax elected lieutenant governor, and Mark Herring continuing as attorney general. In concurrent House of Delegates elections, Democrats flipped fifteen of the Republicans' previous sixteen-seat majority.^[369] Control of the House came down to a tied election in the 94th district, which the Republican won by a drawing of lots, giving the party a slim 51–49 majority in the 2018–19 legislative sessions.^[370] At this time, Virginia was ranked as having the most gerrymandered state legislature, as Republicans controlled the House with only 44.5% of the total vote.^[371] In 2019, federal courts found that eleven House district lines, including the 94th, were unconstitutionally drawn to discriminate against African Americans.^[372][373] Adjusted districts were used in the 2019 elections, when Democrats won full control of the General Assembly, despite a political crisis earlier that year.^[374][375] Voters in 2020 then passed a referendum to give control of drawing both state and congressional districts to a commission of eight citizens and four legislators from each of the two major parties, rather than the legislature.^[376]

In 2021, Glenn Youngkin became the first Republican to win the governor's race since 2009,^[377] with his party also winning the races for lieutenant governor and attorney general and gaining seven seats in the House of Delegates, giving them current control of that body.^[378][379]

Federal elections

Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, Virginia's two U.S. Senators, are both former governors.

Though Virginia was considered a "swing state" in the 2008 presidential election,^[380] Virginia's thirteen electoral votes were carried in that election and the three since by Democratic candidates, including Joe Biden, who won by over ten percent in 2020, suggesting the state has shifted to being reliably Democratic in presidential elections. Virginia had previously voted for Republican presidential candidates in thirteen out of fourteen presidential elections from 1952 to 2004, including ten in a row from 1968 to 2004.^[381] Virginia currently holds its presidential primary election on Super Tuesday, the same day as thirteen other states, with the most recent held on March 3, 2020.^[382]

Virginia's two U.S. Senators are in classes 1 and 2. In class 1, Republican incumbent George Allen lost races in 2006 to Democratic newcomer Jim Webb, and again in 2012 to Webb's successor, former Governor Tim Kaine.^[383] In 2008, Democrats also won the class 2 seat when former Governor Mark Warner was elected to replace retiring Republican John Warner.^[384] Virginia has had eleven U.S. House of Representatives seats since 1993, and control of the majority has flipped four times since then, often as part of "wave elections". In the 2010 mid-term elections, the first under President Obama, Republicans flipped the 2nd and 5th seats from the Democrats, who had flipped both in the previous election, as well as the 9th. In the 2018 mid-terms, the first under President Trump, Democrats took back the 2nd, as well as the 7th and 10th.^[385] The 2nd flipped again, to Republican control, in 2022.^[386] Currently, Democrats hold six seats to Republicans' five.

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Politics of Virginia

Politics of Virginia

The politics of Virginia have followed major historical events and demographic changes in the commonwealth. In the 21st century, the northern region has become more liberal in attitudes and voting, constituting a reliable voting bloc for Democrats and joining with population centers in the Richmond Metropolitan and Hampton Roads areas to dominate the state. Political orientation varies by region, with the larger cities and suburban areas generally voting Democratic and the rural areas voting Republican. The southern, rural regions have remained rural and conservative. Until 2021 when the GOP swept all state-wide offices, Virginia was shifting more Democratic and now is considered a swing-state again by most pundits.

Shad Planking

Shad Planking

The Shad Planking is an annual political event in Virginia which takes place every April near Wakefield in Sussex County. It is sponsored by a chapter of the Ruritans, a community service organization which was founded in the small town of Holland about 30 miles to the southeast.

Solid South

Solid South

The Solid South or the Southern bloc was the electoral voting bloc of the states of the Southern United States for issues that were regarded as particularly important to the interests of Democrats in those states. The Southern bloc existed especially between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. During this period, the Democratic Party overwhelmingly controlled southern state legislatures, and most local, state and federal officeholders in the South were Democrats. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, Southern Democrats disenfranchised blacks in all Southern states, along with a few non-Southern states doing the same as well. This resulted essentially in a one-party system, in which a candidate's victory in Democratic primary elections was tantamount to election to the office itself. White primaries were another means that the Democrats used to consolidate their political power, excluding blacks from voting in primaries.

Voter turnout

Voter turnout

In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate of a given election. This is typically either the percentage of registered voters, eligible voters, or all voting-age people. According to Stanford University political scientists Adam Bonica and Michael McFaul, there is a consensus among political scientists that "democracies perform better when more people vote."

Virginia General Assembly

Virginia General Assembly

The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, the first elected legislative assembly in the New World, and was established on July 30, 1619. The General Assembly is a bicameral body consisting of a lower house, the Virginia House of Delegates, with 100 members, and an upper house, the Senate of Virginia, with 40 members. Senators serve terms of four years, and Delegates serve two-year terms. Combined, the General Assembly consists of 140 elected representatives from an equal number of constituent districts across the commonwealth. The House of Delegates is presided over by the Speaker of the House, while the Senate is presided over by the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. The House and Senate each elect a clerk and sergeant-at-arms. The Senate of Virginia's clerk is known as the "Clerk of the Senate".

Supreme Court of the United States

Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point of U.S. Constitutional or federal law. It also has original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases, specifically "all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party." The court holds the power of judicial review, the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution. It is also able to strike down presidential directives for violating either the Constitution or statutory law. However, it may act only within the context of a case in an area of law over which it has jurisdiction. The court may decide cases having political overtones, but has ruled that it does not have power to decide non-justiciable political questions.

Davis v. Mann

Davis v. Mann

Davis v. Mann, 377 U.S. 678 (1964), was a United States Supreme Court which was one of a series of cases decided in 1964 that ruled that state legislature districts had to be roughly equal in population.

Jim Crow laws

Jim Crow laws

The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced racial segregation, "Jim Crow" being a pejorative term for an African-American. Such laws remained in force until the 1960s. Formal and informal segregation policies were present in other areas of the United States as well, even if several states outside the South had banned discrimination in public accommodations and voting. Southern laws were enacted by white Southern Democrat-dominated state legislatures to disenfranchise and remove political and economic gains made by African Americans during the Reconstruction era.

Disfranchisement

Disfranchisement

Disfranchisement, also called disenfranchisement, or voter disqualification is the restriction of suffrage of a person or group of people, or a practice that has the effect of preventing a person exercising the right to vote. Disfranchisement can also refer to the revocation of power or control of a particular individual, community or being to the natural amenity they have; that is to deprive of a franchise, of a legal right, of some privilege or inherent immunity. Disfranchisement may be accomplished explicitly by law or implicitly through requirements applied in a discriminatory fashion, through intimidation, or by placing unreasonable requirements on voters for registration or voting.

Shelby County v. Holder

Shelby County v. Holder

Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding the constitutionality of two provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Section 5, which requires certain states and local governments to obtain federal preclearance before implementing any changes to their voting laws or practices; and Section 4(b), which contains the coverage formula that determines which jurisdictions are subject to preclearance based on their histories of discrimination in voting.

Voter identification laws in the United States

Voter identification laws in the United States

Voter ID laws in the United States are laws that require a person to provide some form of official identification before they are permitted to register to vote, receive a ballot for an election, or to actually vote in elections in the United States.

Bob McDonnell

Bob McDonnell

Robert Francis McDonnell is an American attorney, businessman, politician, and former military officer who served as the 71st governor of Virginia from 2010 to 2014. His career ended after his corruption scandal and conviction, which was later unanimously overturned by the Supreme Court. A member of the Republican Party, McDonnell also served on the executive committee of the Republican Governors Association. McDonnell was a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army Reserve. He also served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1992 to 2006, and was attorney general of Virginia from 2006 to 2009.

Middle school students in Albemarle County participate in an engineering program in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution

Virginia's educational system consistently ranks in the top five states on the U.S. Department of Education's National Assessment of Educational Progress, with Virginia students outperforming the average in all subject areas and grade levels tested.^[387] The 2020 Quality Counts report ranked Virginia's K–12 education eighth in the country, with a letter grade of B.^[388] All school divisions must adhere to educational standards set forth by the Virginia Department of Education, which maintains an assessment and accreditation regime known as the Standards of Learning to ensure accountability.^[389]

Public K–12 schools in Virginia are generally operated by the counties and cities, and not by the state. As of the 2018–19 academic year,^[update] a total of 1,290,576 students were enrolled in 2,293 local and regional schools in the Commonwealth, including eight charter schools, and an additional 98 alternative and special education centers across 133 school divisions.^[390][391] 2018 marked the first decline in overall enrollment in public schools, by just over 2,000 students, since 1984.^[392] Besides the general public schools in Virginia, there are Governor's Schools and selective magnet schools. The Governor's Schools are a collection of more than forty regional high schools and summer programs intended for gifted students.^[393] The Virginia Council for Private Education oversees the regulation of 483 state accredited private schools.^[394] An additional 17,283 students receive homeschooling.^[395]

In 2019, 91.5% of high school students graduated on-time after four years,^[396] an increase of two percent from 2013,^[397] and 89.3% of adults over the age 25 had their high school diploma.^[3] Virginia has one of the smaller racial gaps in graduation rates among U.S. states,^[398] with 89.7% of Black students graduating on time, compared to 94.7% of white students and 97.5% of Asian students.^[396] Despite ending school segregation in the 1960s, seven percent of Virginia's public schools were rated as "intensely segregated" by The Civil Rights Project at UCLA in 2019, and the number has risen since 1989, when only three percent were.^[399] Virginia has comparatively large public school districts, typically comprising entire counties or cities, and this helps mitigate funding gaps seen in other states such that non-white districts average slightly more funding, $255 per student as of 2019^[update], than majority white districts.^[400] Elementary schools, with Virginia's smallest districts, were found to be more segregated than state middle or high schools by a 2019 VCU study.^[401]

Colleges and universities

The University of Virginia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, guarantees full tuition scholarships to all in-state students from families earning up to $80,000.^[402]

As of 2020^[update], Virginia has the sixth highest percent of residents with bachelor's degrees or higher, with 39.5%.^[3] The Department of Education recognizes 163 colleges and universities in Virginia.^[403] In the 2022 U.S. News & World Report ranking of national public universities, the University of Virginia is ranked 3rd, the College of William and Mary is 13th, Virginia Tech is 23rd, George Mason University is 65th, James Madison University is 72nd, and Virginia Commonwealth University is 83rd.^[404] There are 119 private institutions in the state, including Washington and Lee University and the University of Richmond, which are ranked as the country's 11th and 18th best liberal arts colleges respectively.^[403][405]

Virginia Tech and Virginia State University are the state's land-grant universities, and Virginia State is one of five historically black colleges and universities in Virginia.^[406] The Virginia Military Institute is the oldest state military college.^[407] Virginia also operates 23 community colleges on 40 campuses which enrolled 218,985 degree-seeking students during the 2020–2021 school year.^[408] In 2021, the state made community college free for most low- and middle-income students.^[409] George Mason University had the largest on-campus enrollment at 38,542 students as of 2021^[update],^[410] though the private Liberty University had the largest total enrollment in the state, with 88,283 online and 15,105 on-campus students in Lynchburg as of 2019^[update].^[411]

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Education in Virginia

Education in Virginia

Education in Virginia addresses the needs of students from pre-kindergarten through adult education. Virginia's educational system consistently ranks in the top ten states on the U.S. Department of Education's National Assessment of Educational Progress, with Virginia students outperforming the average in almost all subject areas and grade levels tested. The 2010 Quality Counts report ranked Virginia's K–12 education fourth best in the country. All school divisions must adhere to educational standards set forth by the Virginia Department of Education, which maintains an assessment and accreditation regime known as the Standards of Learning to ensure accountability. In 2008, 81% of high school students graduated on-time after four years. The 1984 Virginia Assembly stated that, "Education is the cornerstone upon which Virginia's future rests."

Albemarle County, Virginia

Albemarle County, Virginia

Albemarle County is a county located in the Piedmont region of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Its county seat is Charlottesville, which is an independent city and enclave entirely surrounded by the county. Albemarle County is part of the Charlottesville Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2020 census, the population was 112,395.

Smithsonian Institution

Smithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian Institution, or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded on August 10, 1846, it operates as a trust instrumentality and is not formally a part of any of the three branches of the federal government. The institution is named after its founding donor, British scientist James Smithson. It was originally organized as the United States National Museum, but that name ceased to exist administratively in 1967.

National Assessment of Educational Progress

National Assessment of Educational Progress

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the largest continuing and nationally representative assessment of what U.S. students know and can do in various subjects. NAEP is a congressionally mandated project administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), within the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education. The first national administration of NAEP occurred in 1969. The National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) is an independent, bipartisan board that sets policy for NAEP and is responsible for developing the framework and test specifications.The National Assessment Governing Board, whose members are appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Education, includes governors, state legislators, local and state school officials, educators, business representatives, and members of the general public. Congress created the 26-member Governing Board in 1988.

Standards of Learning

Standards of Learning

The Standards of Learning (SOL) is a public school standardized testing program in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It sets forth learning and achievement expectations for core subjects for grades K-12 in Virginia's Public Schools. The standards represent what many teachers, school administrators, parents, and business and community leaders believe schools should teach and students should learn. The Virginia Department of Education, schools, and school systems routinely receive essential feedback on the effectiveness of implementation and address effective instructional strategies and best practices. The Standards of Learning is supportive of and a direct response to the No Child Left Behind Act, which was signed into law by then-President George W. Bush on January 8, 2002. They address student achievement in four critical areas: (1) English, (2) mathematics, (3) science, and (4) history/social studies. Students are assessed in English and mathematics in grades 3-8 and upon completion of certain high school level courses. Science and history SOL are administered in grades 4, 5, and 8 and at the end of completing high school courses in these respective subjects.

Charter school

Charter school

A charter school is a school that receives government funding but operates independently of the established state school system in which it is located. It is independent in the sense that it operates according to the basic principle of autonomy for accountability, that it is freed from the rules but accountable for results.

List of school divisions in Virginia

List of school divisions in Virginia

This is a complete list of school divisions in the U.S. state of Virginia, organized by the regions into which the Virginia Department of Education groups them.

Governor's Schools (Virginia)

Governor's Schools (Virginia)

The Governor's Schools are a collection of regional magnet high schools and summer programs in the Commonwealth of Virginia intended for gifted students.

Magnet school

Magnet school

In the U.S. education system, magnet schools are public schools with specialized courses or curricula. "Magnet" refers to how the schools draw students from across the normal boundaries defined by authorities as school zones that feed into certain schools. Attending them is voluntary.

School segregation in the United States

School segregation in the United States

School segregation in the United States is the separation of students based on their ethnicity. More than half of all students in the United States attend school districts with high concentrations and about 40% of black students attend schools where 90%-100% of students are non-white.

List of colleges and universities in Virginia

List of colleges and universities in Virginia

This is a list of colleges and universities in the U.S. state of Virginia. The oldest college or university in Virginia is The College of William and Mary, founded in 1693. In 2010, the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine became the newest. The largest institution is Liberty University, with over 110,000 students. The smallest is the graduate-only Institute for the Psychological Sciences.

List of U.S. states and territories by educational attainment

List of U.S. states and territories by educational attainment

This list of U.S. states and territories by educational attainment covers the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and the territory of Puerto Rico and their populations' educational attainment for all people of at least 25 years of age. The four other inhabited U.S. territories are listed separately.

Patients are screened for COVID-19 outside Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, the Navy's oldest continuously operating hospital.^[412]

Virginia has a mixed health record. The state was ranked 14th in overall health outcomes and 18th for healthy behaviors by the 2022 United Health Foundation's Health Rankings. Among U.S. states, Virginia has the nineteenth lowest rate of premature deaths, with 7,931 per 100,000,^[127] and an infant mortality rate of 5.61 per 1,000 live births.^[413] The rate of uninsured Virginians dropped to 6.8% in 2022, following an expansion of Medicare in 2019.^[127] Falls Church and Loudoun County were both ranked in the top ten healthiest communities in 2020 by U.S. News & World Report.^[414]

There are however racial and social health disparities. With high rates of heart disease and diabetes, African Americans in Virginia had an average life expectancy four years lower than whites and twelve years lower than Asian Americans and Latinos in 2017,^[415] and were disproportionately affected by COVID-19 during the coronavirus pandemic.^[416] African-American mothers are also three times more likely to die while giving birth in the state.^[417] Mortality rates among white middle-class Virginians have also been rising, with drug overdose, alcohol poisoning, and suicide as leading causes.^[418] Suicides in the state increased by 11% between 2009 and 2021, while deaths from drug overdoses more than doubled in that time.^[419]

Weight is an issue for many Virginians, and 32.2% of adults and 14.9% of 10- to 17-year-olds are obese as of 2021^[update].^[420] Additionally, 35% of adults are overweight and 23.3% do not exercise regularly.^[421] Smoking in bars and restaurants was banned in January 2010,^[422] and the percent of tobacco smokers in the state has declined from 19% in that year to 12.4% in 2022, but an additional 6.8% use e-cigarettes. Virginia does have above average percentage of residents who receive annual immunizations, ranking sixteenth for yearly flu vaccinations.^[127] In 2008, Virginia became the first U.S. state to mandate the HPV vaccine for girls for school attendance,^[423] and 64.9% of adolescents have the vaccine.^[127] As of March 2023^[update], 73.8% of Virginians had received a full COVID-19 vaccine.^[424]

The Virginia Board of Health regulates health care facilities, and there are ninety hospitals in Virginia with a combined 17,706 hospital beds as of 2020^[update].^[425] Notable examples include Inova Fairfax Hospital, the largest hospital in the Washington Metropolitan Area, and the VCU Medical Center, located on the medical campus of Virginia Commonwealth University. The University of Virginia Medical Center, part of the University of Virginia Health System, is highly ranked in endocrinology according to U.S. News & World Report.^[426] Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, a teaching institution of Eastern Virginia Medical School, was the site of the first successful in-vitro fertilization program.^[427] Virginia has a ratio of 254.8 primary care physicians per 10,000 residents, the fifteenth worst rate nationally, and only 228.8 mental health providers per that number, the thirteenth worst nationwide.^[127] As of 2021^[update], the state's eight public mental health care facilities were 96% full, causing delays in admissions.^[428]

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COVID-19

COVID-19

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Infant mortality

Infant mortality

Infant mortality is the death of young children under the age of 1. This death toll is measured by the infant mortality rate (IMR), which is the probability of deaths of children under one year of age per 1000 live births. Similarly, the child mortality rate, also known as the under-five mortality rate compares the death rate of children up to the age of five.

Medicare (United States)

Medicare (United States)

Medicare is a government national health insurance program in the United States, begun in 1965 under the Social Security Administration (SSA) and now administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). It primarily provides health insurance for Americans aged 65 and older, but also for some younger people with disability status as determined by the SSA, including people with end stage renal disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Falls Church, Virginia

Falls Church, Virginia

Falls Church is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 14,658. Falls Church is included in the Washington metropolitan area.

Loudoun County, Virginia

Loudoun County, Virginia

Loudoun County is in the northern part of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. In 2020, the census returned a population of 420,959, making it Virginia's third-most populous county. Loudoun County's seat is Leesburg. Loudoun County is part of the Washington–Arlington–Alexandria, DC–VA–MD–WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of 2020, Loudoun County had a median household income of $147,111. Since 2008, the county has been ranked first in the U.S. in median household income among jurisdictions with a population of 65,000 or more.

COVID-19 pandemic in Virginia

COVID-19 pandemic in Virginia

The COVID-19 pandemic in Virginia is part of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The first confirmed case was reported on March 7, 2020, in Fort Belvoir, and the first suspected case arrived in Virginia on February 23, 2020, which was a man who had recently traveled to Egypt. In response to the spread of COVID-19, the state mandated a stay at home order from March 18, 2020, until May 12, 2020, when the state began a four-phased reopening plan that lasted through July 1, 2020. From May 31, 2020, until May 28, 2021, the state enforced a mask mandate, being one of the first states in the nation to enforce a statewide mask mandate. The state remained relatively stagnant in COVID-19 cases through November 2020, until there was a large surge in COVID-19 cases during the winter of 2020–21, as part of a nationwide surge in cases. Cases gradually subsided to summer and fall 2020 numbers by March 2021, with numbers falling to early pandemic numbers by June 2021.

Maternal mortality in the United States

Maternal mortality in the United States

Maternal mortality refers to the death of a woman during her pregnancy or up to a year after her pregnancy has terminated; this metric only includes causes related to the pregnancy, and does not include accidental causes. Some sources will define maternal mortality as the death of a woman up to 42 days after the pregnancy has ended, instead of one year. In 1986, the CDC began tracking pregnancy related deaths to gather information and determine what was causing these deaths by creating the Pregnancy-Related Mortality Surveillance System. Although the United States was spending more on healthcare than any other country in the world, more than two women died during childbirth every day, making maternal mortality in the United States the highest when compared to 49 other countries in the developed world. The CDC reported an increase in the maternal mortality ratio in the United States from 18.8 deaths per 100,000 births to 23.8 deaths per 100,000 births between 2000 and 2014, a 26.6% increase. As of 2018, the US had an estimated 17.4 deaths per 100,000 live births. The mortality rate of pregnant and recently pregnant women in the United States rose almost 30% between 2019 and 2020. According to the CDC a study that included data from 36 states found that more than 80% of pregnancy related deaths were preventable between 2017–2019.

HPV vaccine

HPV vaccine

Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines are vaccines that prevent infection by certain types of human papillomavirus (HPV). Available HPV vaccines protect against either two, four, or nine types of HPV. All HPV vaccines protect against at least HPV types 16 and 18, which cause the greatest risk of cervical cancer. It is estimated that HPV vaccines may prevent 70% of cervical cancer, 80% of anal cancer, 60% of vaginal cancer, 40% of vulvar cancer, and show more than 90% efficacy in preventing HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancers. They additionally prevent some genital warts, with the quadrivalent and nonavalent vaccines that protect against HPV types HPV-6 and HPV-11 providing greater protection.

COVID-19 vaccine

COVID-19 vaccine

A COVID‑19 vaccine is a vaccine intended to provide acquired immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‑19).

List of hospitals in Virginia

List of hospitals in Virginia

This is a list of hospitals in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States, sorted by hospital name.

Inova Fairfax Hospital

Inova Fairfax Hospital

Inova Fairfax Medical Campus is the largest hospital campus in Northern Virginia and the flagship hospital of Inova Health System. Located in Woodburn in Fairfax County, Virginia, Inova Fairfax Hospital is one of the largest employers in the county. Inova Fairfax Hospital is also home to a neonatal intensive care unit, and a dedicated pediatrics intensive care unit, an oncology unit, an adolescent medicine unit, and centers for cardiac surgery and pediatric surgery.

Endocrinology

Endocrinology

Endocrinology is a branch of biology and medicine dealing with the endocrine system, its diseases, and its specific secretions known as hormones. It is also concerned with the integration of developmental events proliferation, growth, and differentiation, and the psychological or behavioral activities of metabolism, growth and development, tissue function, sleep, digestion, respiration, excretion, mood, stress, lactation, movement, reproduction, and sensory perception caused by hormones. Specializations include behavioral endocrinology and comparative endocrinology.

USA Today, one of the nation's most circulated newspapers, has its headquarters in McLean.

The Hampton Roads area is the 44th-largest media market in the United States as ranked by Nielsen Media Research, while the Richmond-Petersburg area is 56th and Roanoke-Lynchburg is 71st as of 2022^[update]. Northern Virginia is part of the much larger Washington, D.C. media market, which is the country's 9th-largest.^[429]

There are 36 television stations in Virginia, representing each major U.S. network, part of 42 stations which serve Virginia viewers including those broadcasting from neighboring jurisdictions.^[430] According the Federal Communications Commission, 595 FCC-licensed FM radio stations broadcast in Virginia, with 239 such AM stations as of 2020^[update].^[431][432] The nationally available Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is headquartered in Arlington. Independent PBS affiliates exist throughout Virginia, and the Arlington PBS member station WETA-TV produces programs such as the PBS NewsHour and Washington Week.

The most circulated native newspapers in the Commonwealth are Norfolk's The Virginian-Pilot with around 132,000 subscribers,^[433] the Richmond Times-Dispatch with 86,219,^[434] and The Roanoke Times as of 2018^[update].^[435] USA Today, which is headquartered in McLean, has seen its daily subscription number decline significantly from over 500,000 in 2019 to just over 180,000 in 2021, but is still the third-most circulated paper nationwide.^[436] USA Today is the flagship publication of Gannett, Inc., which merged with GateHouse Media in 2019, and operates over one hundred local newspapers nationwide.^[437] In Northern Virginia, The Washington Post is the dominant newspaper and provides local coverage for the region.^[438] Politico, which covers national politics, has its offices in Rosslyn.^[439]

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List of newspapers in Virginia

List of newspapers in Virginia

This is a list of newspapers in Virginia.

List of radio stations in Virginia

List of radio stations in Virginia

The following is a list of FCC-licensed radio stations in the U.S. state of Virginia which can be sorted by their call signs, frequencies, cities of license, licensees, and programming formats.

List of television stations in Virginia

List of television stations in Virginia

This is a list of broadcast television stations that are licensed in the U.S. state of Virginia.

McLean, Virginia

McLean, Virginia

McLean is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia. McLean is home to many diplomats, military, members of Congress, and high-ranking government officials partially due to its proximity to Washington, D.C., the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency. It is the location of Hickory Hill, the former home of Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert F. Kennedy. It is also the location of Salona, the former home of Light-Horse Harry Lee, the Revolutionary War hero.

Hampton Roads

Hampton Roads

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.

Media market

Media market

A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television and radio station offerings, and may also include other types of media such as newspapers and internet content. They can coincide or overlap with one or more metropolitan areas, though rural regions with few significant population centers can also be designated as markets. Conversely, very large metropolitan areas can sometimes be subdivided into multiple segments. Market regions may overlap, meaning that people residing on the edge of one media market may be able to receive content from other nearby markets. They are widely used in audience measurements, which are compiled in the United States by Nielsen Media Research. Nielsen measures both television and radio audiences since its acquisition of Arbitron, which was completed in September 2013.

Nielsen Media Research

Nielsen Media Research

Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films, and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen ratings, an audience measurement system of television viewership that for years has been the deciding factor in canceling or renewing television shows by television networks. As of May 2012, it is part of Nielsen Holdings.

Roanoke, Virginia

Roanoke, Virginia

Roanoke is an independent city in the U.S. state of Virginia. At the 2020 census, the population was 100,011, making it the 8th most populous city in the Commonwealth of Virginia and the largest city in Virginia west of Richmond. It is located in the Roanoke Valley of the Roanoke Region of Virginia.

Lynchburg, Virginia

Lynchburg, Virginia

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.

List of United States over-the-air television networks

List of United States over-the-air television networks

In the United States, for most of the history of broadcasting, there were only three or four major commercial national terrestrial networks. From 1946 to 1956, these were ABC, CBS, NBC and DuMont. From 1956 to 1986, the "Big Three" national commercial networks were ABC, CBS, and NBC. From 1954 to 1970, National Educational Television was the national clearinghouse for public TV programming; the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) succeeded it in 1970.

Federal Communications Commission

Federal Communications Commission

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction over the areas of broadband access, fair competition, radio frequency use, media responsibility, public safety, and homeland security.

Radio

Radio

Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connected to an antenna which radiates the waves, and received by another antenna connected to a radio receiver. Radio is widely used in modern technology, in radio communication, radar, radio navigation, remote control, remote sensing, and other applications.

The Silver Line extension of the Washington Metro system opened in Tysons in 2014.

Because of the 1932 Byrd Road Act, the state government controls most of Virginia's roads, instead of a local county authority as is usual in other states.^[440] As of 2018^[update], the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) owns and operates 57,867 miles (93,128 km) of the total 70,105 miles (112,823 km) of roads in the state, making it the third largest state highway system in the United States.^[441] Traffic on Virginia's roads is among the worst in the nation according to the 2019 American Community Survey. The average commute time of 28.7 minutes is the eighth longest among U.S. states, and the Washington Metropolitan Area, which includes Northern Virginia, has the second worst rate of traffic congestion among U.S. cities.^[442] About 65.6% of workers in Virginia reported driving alone to work in 2021, the eleventh lowest percent in the U.S.,^[127] while 8.5% reported carpooling,^[443] and Virginia hit peak car usage before the year 2000, making it one of the first such states.^[444]

About 3.4% of Virginians commute on public transit,^[443] and there were over 171.9 million public transit trips in Virginia in 2019, over 62% of which were done on the Washington Metro transit system, which serves Arlington and Alexandria, and extends into Loudoun and Fairfax Counties.^[445] Virginia has Amtrak passenger rail service along several corridors, and Virginia Railway Express (VRE) maintains two commuter lines into Washington, D.C. from Fredericksburg and Manassas. VRE averaged over 90,000 weekly riders in 2019, but saw a dramatic 90% decline in ridership due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.^[446] In October 2023, VRE ridership was still less than 50% of pre-pandemic levels, despite a fare-free month,^[447] however Amtrak routes in Virginia have passed pre-pandemic levels and served 87,300 passengers in January 2023.^[448] Major freight railroads in Virginia include Norfolk Southern and CSX Transportation, and in 2021 the state finalized a deal to purchase 223 miles (359 km) of track and over 350 miles (560 km) of right of way from CSX for future passenger rail service.^[449]

Commuter buses include the Fairfax Connector, FRED buses in Fredericksburg, and OmniRide in Prince William County,^[450] while the state-run Virginia Breeze buses run four inter-city routes from Washington, D.C. to Bristol, Blacksburg, Martinsville, and Danville.^[451] VDOT operates several free ferries throughout Virginia, the most notable being the Jamestown Ferry which connects Jamestown to Scotland Wharf across the James River.^[452]

Virginia has five major airports: Washington Dulles International and Reagan Washington National in Northern Virginia, both of which handle more than twenty million passengers a year, Richmond International southeast of the state capital, and Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport and Norfolk International in Hampton Roads. Several other airports offer limited commercial passenger service, and sixty-six public airports serve the state's aviation needs.^[453] The Virginia Port Authority's main seaports are those in Hampton Roads, which carried 61,505,700 short tons (55,797,000 t) of total cargo in 2021^[update], the sixth most of United States ports.^[454] The Eastern Shore of Virginia is the site of Wallops Flight Facility, a rocket launch center owned by NASA, and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, a commercial spaceport.^[455][456] Space tourism is also offered through Vienna-based Space Adventures.^[457]

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Byrd Road Act

Byrd Road Act

The Byrd Road Act was an Act of Assembly passed in February 1932 by the Virginia General Assembly. Named for former Governor Harry F. Byrd, the legislation was originally presented as measure to relieve the financial pressures of the Great Depression upon the counties, as the state offered to take over responsibility and control of most county roads, creating the Virginia Secondary Roads System.

Northern Virginia

Northern Virginia

Northern Virginia, locally referred to as NOVA or NoVA, comprises several counties and independent cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. It is a widespread region radiating westward and southward from Washington, D.C. With 3,197,076 people according to the 2020 Census, it is the most populous region of Virginia and the Washington metropolitan area.

Peak car

Peak car

Peak car is a hypothesis that motor vehicle distance traveled per capita, predominantly by private car, has peaked and will now fall in a sustained manner. The theory was developed as an alternative to the prevailing market saturation model, which suggested that car use would saturate and then remain reasonably constant, or to GDP-based theories which predict that traffic will increase again as the economy improves, linking recent traffic reductions to the Great Recession of 2008.

Arlington County, Virginia

Arlington County, Virginia

Arlington County is a county in the U.S. state of Virginia. The county is located in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from Washington, D.C.. The county is coextensive with the U.S. Census Bureau's census-designated place of Arlington. Arlington County is the second-largest city in the Washington metropolitan area, although it does not have the legal designation of an independent city or incorporated town under Virginia state law.

Alexandria, Virginia

Alexandria, Virginia

Alexandria is an independent city in the northern region of the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately 7 miles (11 km) south of downtown Washington, D.C. Alexandria is the third-largest "principal city" of the Washington metropolitan area which is part of the larger Washington-Baltimore combined statistical area.

Loudoun County, Virginia

Loudoun County, Virginia

Loudoun County is in the northern part of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. In 2020, the census returned a population of 420,959, making it Virginia's third-most populous county. Loudoun County's seat is Leesburg. Loudoun County is part of the Washington–Arlington–Alexandria, DC–VA–MD–WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of 2020, Loudoun County had a median household income of $147,111. Since 2008, the county has been ranked first in the U.S. in median household income among jurisdictions with a population of 65,000 or more.

Fairfax County, Virginia

Fairfax County, Virginia

Fairfax County, officially the County of Fairfax, is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is part of Northern Virginia and borders both the city of Alexandria and Arlington County and forms part of the suburban ring of Washington, D.C. The county is predominantly suburban in character with some urban and rural pockets.

Amtrak

Amtrak

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.

Fredericksburg, Virginia

Fredericksburg, Virginia

Fredericksburg is an independent city located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 27,982. It is 48 miles (77 km) south of Washington, D.C., and 53 miles (85 km) north of Richmond. The Bureau of Economic Analysis of the United States Department of Commerce combines the city of Fredericksburg with neighboring Spotsylvania County for statistical purposes.

Manassas, Virginia

Manassas, Virginia

Manassas, formerly Manassas Junction, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. The population was 42,772 at the 2020 Census. It is the county seat of Prince William County, although the two are separate jurisdictions. Manassas borders the independent city of Manassas Park, Virginia. The Bureau of Economic Analysis includes both Manassas and Manassas Park with Prince William County for statistical purposes.

COVID-19 pandemic in Virginia

COVID-19 pandemic in Virginia

The COVID-19 pandemic in Virginia is part of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The first confirmed case was reported on March 7, 2020, in Fort Belvoir, and the first suspected case arrived in Virginia on February 23, 2020, which was a man who had recently traveled to Egypt. In response to the spread of COVID-19, the state mandated a stay at home order from March 18, 2020, until May 12, 2020, when the state began a four-phased reopening plan that lasted through July 1, 2020. From May 31, 2020, until May 28, 2021, the state enforced a mask mandate, being one of the first states in the nation to enforce a statewide mask mandate. The state remained relatively stagnant in COVID-19 cases through November 2020, until there was a large surge in COVID-19 cases during the winter of 2020–21, as part of a nationwide surge in cases. Cases gradually subsided to summer and fall 2020 numbers by March 2021, with numbers falling to early pandemic numbers by June 2021.

CSX Transportation

CSX Transportation

CSX Transportation, known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates on approximately 21,000 route miles (34,000 km) of track. The company operates as the leading subsidiary of CSX Corporation, a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida.

The annual Monument Avenue 10K in Richmond is one of the ten largest timed long-distance running races in the U.S.^[458]

Virginia is the most populous U.S. state without a major professional sports league franchise. The reasons for this include the lack of any dominant city or market within the state, a reluctance to publicly finance stadiums, and the proximity of teams in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Charlotte, and Raleigh.^[459] A proposed arena in Virginia Beach designed for an NBA franchise became the latest unsuccessful sports initiative when the city council there ended support in 2017.^[460] Virginia Beach had previously been considered for an NBA franchise in 1987, which ultimately became the Charlotte Hornets.^[461] The Virginia Squires of the ABA started in Norfolk in 1970, but lost momentum after trading "Dr. J" Julius Erving and folded just one month before the ABA–NBA merger in 1976.^[462]

Five minor league baseball and two mid-level hockey teams play in Virginia. Norfolk is host to two: The Triple-A Norfolk Tides and the ECHL's Norfolk Admirals. The Double-A Richmond Flying Squirrels began playing at The Diamond in 2010,^[463] while the Fredericksburg Nationals, Lynchburg Hillcats, and Salem Red Sox play in the Low-A East league.^[464] Loudoun United FC, the reserve team of D.C. United, debuted in the USL Championship in 2019,^[465] while the Richmond Kickers of the USL League One have operated since 1993 and are the only team in their league to win both the league championship and the U.S. Open Cup in the same year.^[466] The Washington Commanders also have their headquarters in Ashburn and their training facility in Richmond,^[467] and the Washington Capitals practice at MedStar Capitals Iceplex in Ballston.

Virginia has many professional caliber golf courses including Kingsmill Resort outside Williamsburg, which hosts an LPGA Tour tournament in May, and the Country Club of Virginia outside Richmond, which hosts a charity classic on the men's senior tour in October. NASCAR currently schedules Cup Series races on two tracks in Virginia: Martinsville Speedway and Richmond Raceway. Virginia natives currently competing in the series include Denny Hamlin and Elliott Sadler.^[468] Hampton Roads has produced several Olympic gold medalists, including Gabby Douglas, the first African American to win gymnastics individual all-around gold,^[469] and LaShawn Merritt, Francena McCorory, and Michael Cherry, who have all won gold in the 4 × 400 metres relay.^[470] Major long-distance races in the state include the Richmond Marathon, the Blue Ridge Marathon on the Parkway, and the Monument Avenue 10K.

College sports

Mike Scott and Joe Harris of the Virginia Cavaliers battle Cadarian Raines of the Virginia Tech Hokies for a rebound at Cassell Coliseum

In the absence of professional sports, several of Virginia's collegiate sports programs have attracted strong followings, with a 2015 poll showing that 34% of Virginians were fans of the Virginia Cavaliers and 28% were fans of the rival Virginia Tech Hokies, making both more popular than the surveyed regional professional teams.^[471] The men's and women's college basketball programs of the Cavaliers, VCU Rams, and Old Dominion Monarchs have combined for 63 regular season conference championships and 48 conference tournament championships between them as of 2021^[update]. The Hokies football team sustained a 27-year bowl streak between 1993 and 2019; James Madison Dukes football won FCS NCAA Championships in both 2004 and 2016.^[472] The overall UVA men's athletics programs won the national Capital One Cup in both 2015 and 2019, and lead the Atlantic Coast Conference in NCAA championships.^[473][474]

Fourteen universities in total compete in NCAA Division I, with multiple programs each in the Atlantic Coast Conference, Atlantic 10 Conference, Big South Conference, and Colonial Athletic Association. Three historically Black schools compete in the Division II Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association, and two others (Hampton and Norfolk State) compete in Division I. Several smaller schools compete in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference and the USA South Athletic Conference of NCAA Division III. The NCAA currently holds its Division III championships in football, men's basketball, volleyball, and softball in Salem.^[475] State appropriated funds are not allowed to be used for either operational or capital expenses for intercollegiate athletics.^[476]

High school sports

Virginia is also home to several of the nation's top high school basketball programs, including Paul VI Catholic High School and Oak Hill Academy, the latter of which has won nine national championships.^[477] In the 2018–2019 school year, 174,224 high school students participated in fourteen girls sports and thirteen boys sports managed by the Virginia High School League, with the most popular sports being football, outdoor track and cross country, soccer, basketball, baseball and softball, and volleyball.^[478] Youth soccer leagues outside of the high school system are also popular in the state, and 19 teams from Virginia have won national championships, eighth-most among U.S. states.^[479] Access to youth soccer in Virginia however has been found to be highly correlated to race and median household income, with opportunities almost completely disappearing in areas where the non-white population exceeded 90%, particularly in the Southwest and Southside regions of the Commonwealth.^[480]

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Monument Avenue 10K

Monument Avenue 10K

The Ukrop's Monument Avenue 10K, also known as the Monument Avenue 10K, is an annual 10-kilometer road running event, sanctioned by USA Track and Field. The race is run on historic Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia. Begun in 2000, the race has grown to be the fourth-largest 10k in the country and the 22nd largest race of any distance in the world. It has been named by USA Today as one of the ten great road races in the United States. The event has 30 bands, dozens of spirit groups and many costumed runners.

Richmond, Virginia

Richmond, Virginia

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.

Major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada

Major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada

The major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada commonly refer to the highest men's professional competitions of team sports in those countries. The four leagues traditionally included in the definition are Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Football League (NFL), and the National Hockey League (NHL). Other prominent leagues include Major League Soccer (MLS) and the Canadian Football League (CFL).

Sports in Baltimore

Sports in Baltimore

Baltimore, Maryland has a long and storied sporting history encompassing many teams from many different eras. Area fans, such as the late Wild Bill Hagy, are known for their passion and reverence for historical sports figures who played in the city or were born there.

Raleigh, North Carolina

Raleigh, North Carolina

Raleigh is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Southeast, the 41st-most populous city in the U.S., and the largest city of the Research Triangle metro area. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak trees, which line the streets in the heart of the city. The city covers a land area of 147.6 sq mi (382 km2). The U.S. Census Bureau counted the city's population as 467,665 in the 2020 census. It is one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States. The city of Raleigh is named after Sir Walter Raleigh, who established the now-lost Roanoke Colony in present-day Dare County.

Charlotte Hornets

Charlotte Hornets

The Charlotte Hornets are an American professional basketball team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Hornets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division, and play their home games at the Spectrum Center in Uptown Charlotte. The Hornets are mainly owned by Basketball Hall of Famer Michael Jordan, who acquired a controlling interest in the team in 2010.

American Basketball Association

American Basketball Association

The American Basketball Association (ABA) was a major men's professional basketball league from 1967 to 1976. The ABA ceased to exist with the American Basketball Association–National Basketball Association merger in 1976, leading to four ABA teams joining the National Basketball Association (NBA) and to the introduction of the 3-point shot in the NBA in 1979.

Norfolk, Virginia

Norfolk, Virginia

Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Incorporated in 1705, it had a population of 238,005 at the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous city in Virginia after neighboring Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, and the 94th-largest city in the nation.

Julius Erving

Julius Erving

Julius Winfield Erving II, commonly known by the nickname Dr. J, is an American former professional basketball player. Erving helped legitimize the American Basketball Association (ABA), and he was the best-known player in that league when it merged into the National Basketball Association (NBA) after the 1975–1976 season.

ABA–NBA merger

ABA–NBA merger

The ABA-NBA merger was a major pro sports business maneuver in 1976 when the American Basketball Association (ABA) combined with the National Basketball Association (NBA), after multiple attempts over several years. The NBA and ABA had entered merger talks as early as 1970, but an antitrust suit filed by the head of the NBA players union, Robertson v. National Basketball Ass'n, blocked the merger until 1976.

Norfolk Tides

Norfolk Tides

The Norfolk Tides are a Minor League Baseball team of the International League and the Triple-A affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles. They are located in Norfolk, Virginia, and are named in nautical reference to the city's location on the Chesapeake Bay. The team plays their home games at Harbor Park, which opened in 1993. The Tides previously played at High Rock Park in 1961 and 1962, Frank D. Lawrence Stadium from 1961 to 1969, and at Met Park from its opening in 1970 until the end of the 1992 season.

ECHL

ECHL

The ECHL is a mid-level professional ice hockey league based in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, with teams scattered across the United States and Canada. It is a tier below the American Hockey League (AHL).

The state slogan, Virginia is for Lovers, has been used since 1969 and is featured on the state's welcome signs.^[481]

Virginia has several nicknames, the oldest of which is the "Old Dominion." King Charles II of England first referred to "our auntient dominion of Virginia" in 1660, the year of his restoration, perhaps because Virginia was home to many of his supporters during the English Civil War.^[482] These supporters were called Cavaliers, and the nickname "The Cavalier State" was popularized after the American Civil War.^[483] Students at the University of Virginia began using The Cavalier Song as their school fight song in 1925, and the school's sports teams were named Cavaliers after the song.^[484] Virginia has also been called the "Mother of Presidents", as eight Virginians have served as President of the United States, including four of the first five.^[485]

The state's motto, Sic Semper Tyrannis, translates from Latin as "Thus Always to Tyrants", and is used on the state seal, which is then used on the flag.^[1] While the seal was designed in 1776, and the flag was first used in the 1830s, both were made official in 1930.^[486] The majority of the other symbols were made official in the late 20th century.^[487] The Virginia reel is among the square dances classified as the state dance.^[488] In 1940, "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" was named the state song, but it was retired in 1997 due to its references to slavery. In March 2015, Virginia's government named "Our Great Virginia", which uses the tune of "Oh Shenandoah", as the traditional state song and "Sweet Virginia Breeze" as the popular state song.^[489]

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List of Virginia state symbols

List of Virginia state symbols

This is a list of symbols of the United States Commonwealth of Virginia. Most of the items in the list are officially recognized symbols created by an act of the Virginia General Assembly and signed into law by the governor. The state nickname, The Old Dominion, is the oldest symbol. However, it is the only symbol that is not official. The other nickname, "Mother of Presidents", is also historic, as eight Virginians have served as President of the United States, including four of the first five: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, and Woodrow Wilson. Additionally, Sam Houston, president of the Republic of Texas, Fulwar Skipwith, the president of the Republic of West Florida, and Joseph Jenkins Roberts, the first president of Liberia were from Virginia.

Charles II of England

Charles II of England

Charles II was King of Scotland from 1649 until 1651, and King of England, Scotland and Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685.

English Civil War

English Civil War

The English Civil War is a generic term for a series of civil wars between Royalists and Parliamentarians in England and Wales from 1642 to 1652. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, they consist of the First English Civil War, the Second English Civil War, and the Third English Civil War. The latter is now usually known as the Anglo-Scottish war (1650–1652), since most of the fighting took place in Scotland, while the Royalists consisted almost entirely of Scots Covenanters and English exiles, with no significant rising in England.

Cavalier

Cavalier

The term "Cavalier" was first used by Roundheads as a term of abuse for the wealthier royalist supporters of King Charles I and his son Charles II of England during the English Civil War, the Interregnum, and the Restoration. It was later adopted by the Royalists themselves. Although it referred originally to political and social attitudes and behaviour, of which clothing was a very small part, it has subsequently become strongly identified with the fashionable clothing of the court at the time. Prince Rupert, commander of much of Charles I's cavalry, is often considered to be an archetypal Cavalier.

American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union and the Confederacy, the latter formed by states that had seceded. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prevented from doing so, which was widely believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction.

Fight song

Fight song

A fight song is a rousing short song associated with a sports team. The term is most common in the United States and Canada. In Australia, Mexico, and New Zealand these songs are called the team anthem, team song, or games song. First associated with collegiate sports, fight songs are also used by secondary schools and in professional sports.

Sic semper tyrannis

Sic semper tyrannis

Sic semper tyrannis is a Latin phrase meaning "thus always to tyrants". In contemporary parlance, it means tyrannical leaders will inevitably be overthrown.

List of U.S. state dances

List of U.S. state dances

Many states of the United States have adopted official dances as one of their state symbols. The practice has extended to U.S. territories and Washington, D.C.

Carry Me Back to Old Virginny

Carry Me Back to Old Virginny

"Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" is a song written circa 1878 by James A. Bland (1854–1911), an African-American composer and minstrel performer. It was Virginia's state song from 1940 until 1997.

List of U.S. state songs

List of U.S. state songs

Forty-eight of the fifty U.S. states have one or more state songs, a type of regional anthem, which are selected by each state legislature as a symbol of that particular U.S. state.

Our Great Virginia

Our Great Virginia

"Our Great Virginia" is the regional anthem of the U.S. state of Virginia.

Oh Shenandoah

Oh Shenandoah

"Oh Shenandoah" is a traditional folk song, sung in the Americas, of uncertain origin, dating to the early 19th century.