Virginia - Wikipedia

“The Old DomVirginia inion” redirects here. For different uses, see Old Dominion.

Virginia (), formally the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern areas of the USA,[5][6] among the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are fashioned by way of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, which give habitat for a lot of its plants and fauna. The capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond; Virginia Beach is the most-populous city, and Fairfax County is the most-populous political subdivision. The Commonwealth’s populace in 2020 turned into over eight.65 million, with 36% of them residing inside the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan region.

The location’s records starts offevolved with numerous indigenous companies, consisting of the Powhatan. In 1607, the London Company installed the Colony of Virginia because the first everlasting English colony in the New World. Virginia’s nation nickname, the Old Dominion, is a reference to this fame. Slave hard work and land received from displaced native tribes fueled the growing plantation economy, but also fueled conflicts both inside and outside the colony. Virginia was one of the Thirteen Colonies all through the American Revolution, becoming part of america in 1776. The state changed into cut up through the American Civil War in 1861, while Virginia’s kingdom authorities in Richmond joined the Confederacy, however many inside the nation’s western counties remained unswerving to the Union, assisting form the kingdom of West Virginia in 1863. Although the Commonwealth became underneath one-birthday party rule for nearly a century following Reconstruction, both major political parties are competitive in cutting-edge Virginia.

Virginia’s country legislature is the Virginia General Assembly, which became installed in July 1619, making it the oldest modern regulation-making frame in North America.[7] It is made of a 40-member Senate and a 100-member House of Delegates. The nation authorities is precise in the way it treats towns and counties similarly, manages nearby roads, and prohibits governors from serving consecutive phrases. Virginia’s economy has many sectors: agriculture in the Shenandoah Valley; excessive tech and federal organizations, along with the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense and Central Intelligence Agency, in Northern Virginia; and military centers in Hampton Roads, the website online of the location’s foremost seaport.

Geography

Virginia has a total location of 42,774.2 rectangular miles (one hundred ten,784.7 km2), which includes 3,one hundred eighty.13 rectangular miles (eight,236.five km2) of water, making it the 35th-largest state with the aid of region.[eight] Virginia is bordered with the aid of Maryland and Washington, D.C. to the north and east; with the aid of the Atlantic Ocean to the east; by North Carolina to the south; through Tennessee to the southwest; by way of 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.[9]

The Commonwealth’s southern border is defined as 36°30′ north latitude, even though surveyor error within the 1700s brought about deviations of as a whole lot as 3 arcminutes because the North Carolina border moved west. Surveyors appointed via 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 inside the Cumberland Mountains. However, errors on this line had been observed in 1856, and Virginia proposed a brand new surveying commission in 1871, however Tennessee disagreed, and in 1893 the U.S. Supreme Court decided in prefer of the 1803 line in the case Virginia v. Tennessee.[11] One result of that is the division of the town of Bristol among the two states.[13]

Geology and terrain

The Chesapeake Bay separates the contiguous portion of the Commonwealth from the 2-county peninsula of Virginia’s Eastern Shore. The bay was formed from the drowned river valley of the ancient Susquehanna River.[14] Many of Virginia’s rivers flow into the Chesapeake Bay, along with the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James, which create three peninsulas in the bay, historically called “necks” named Northern Neck, Middle Peninsula, and the Virginia Peninsula from north to south. Sea stage rise has eroded the land on Virginia’s islands, which include Tangier Island in the bay and Chincoteague, certainly one of 23 barrier islands at the Atlantic coast.[sixteen][17]

The Tidewater is a coastal undeniable between the Atlantic coast and the fall line. It consists of 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 fashioned within the Mesozoic generation. The region, recognized for its heavy clay soil, consists of the Southwest Mountains around Charlottesville.[20] The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the Appalachian Mountains with the very best factors in the Commonwealth, the tallest being Mount Rogers at five,729 toes (1,746 m).[2] The Ridge-and-Valley region is west of the mountains, carbonate rock primarily based, and consists of the Massanutten Mountain ridge and the Great Appalachian Valley, that is called the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia.[21] The Cumberland Plateau and Cumberland Mountains are inside the southwest nook of Virginia, south of the Allegheny Plateau. In this area, rivers waft northwest, with a dendritic drainage system, into the Ohio River basin.

The Virginia Seismic Zone has no longer had a records of ordinary earthquake activity. Earthquakes are not often above 4.5 in value, due to the fact Virginia is located faraway from the rims of the North American Plate. A 5.eight importance earthquake struck principal Virginia on August 23, 2011, near Mineral, and became the Commonwealth’s largest in at the least a century.[23] Due to the region’s geologic properties, the earthquake turned into felt from Northern Florida to Southern Ontario.[24] 35 million years in the past, a bolide impacted what’s now japanese Virginia. The resulting Chesapeake Bay effect crater may additionally explain what earthquakes and subsidence the vicinity does revel in.[25] A meteor effect is also theorized because the source of Lake Drummond, one in every of simply two herbal lakes within the nation.[26]

The Commonwealth’s carbonate rock is full of greater than four,000 limestone caves, ten of which can be open for tourism, consisting of the famous Luray Caverns and Skyline Caverns.[27] Virginia’s iconic Natural Bridge is likewise the final roof of a collapsed limestone cave.[28] Coal mining takes region inside the 3 mountainous areas at forty five awesome coal beds near Mesozoic basins.[29] More than seventy two million tons of different non-gasoline assets, which include slate, kyanite, sand, or gravel, have been also mined in Virginia in 2020.[30] The largest-recognised deposits of uranium in the U.S. are underneath Coles Hill, Virginia. Despite a mission that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, the country has banned its mining because 1982 due to the risks of radiation.[31]

ClimateVirginia country-huge averages 1895–2021Climate chart (explanation)

3.three

three.1

forty seven

3.8

fifty six

three.4

sixty seven

forty two

fifty one

four.1

eighty two

four.6

sixty four

4.3

3.7

seventy nine

three.three

2.nine

fifty seven

3.3

forty seven

Average max. and min. temperatures in °F

Precipitation totals in inchesSource: U.S. Climate Divisional DatasetMetric conversion

eighty four

−four

seventy nine

nine

−three

ninety seven

102

eleven

104

117

109

ninety four

eighty four

seventy four

−three

Average max. and min. temperatures in °C

Precipitation totals in mm

Virginia has a damp subtropical climate that transitions to humid continental west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Seasonal extremes range from average lows of 25 °F (−4 °C) in January to common highs of 86 °F (30 °C) in July.[33] The Atlantic Ocean and Gulf Stream have a robust impact on jap and southeastern coastal regions of the Commonwealth, making the weather there warmer and extra constant. Most of Virginia’s recorded extremes in temperature and precipitation have passed off in the Blue Ridge Mountains and regions west.[34] Virginia gets a median of forty three.49 inches (110 cm) of precipitation yearly,[33] with the Shenandoah Valley being the kingdom’s driest region due to the mountains on either side.[34]

Virginia has round 35–forty five days with thunderstorms annually, and storms are not unusual within the overdue afternoon and evenings between April and September.[35] These months also are the maximum not unusual for tornadoes,[36] fifteen of which touched down in the Commonwealth in 2020.[37] Hurricanes and tropical storms can occur from August to October, and even though they generally effect coastal areas, the deadliest herbal catastrophe in Virginia changed into Hurricane Camille, which killed over 150 human beings in particular in inland Nelson County in 1969.[34][38] Between December and March, cold-air damming caused by the Appalachian Mountains can cause vast snowfalls throughout the state, inclusive of the January 2016 snowfall, which created the state’s maximum recorded snowfall of 36.6 inches (ninety three cm) near Bluemont.[39][forty] Virginia simplest acquired thirteen.1 inches (33 cm) of snow in the course of winter 2018–19, just above the Virginia country’s average of 10 inches (25 cm).[forty one]

Climate alternate in Virginia is leading to better temperatures yr-spherical in addition to greater heavy rain and flooding occasions.[42] Urban warmness islands can be located in lots of Virginia towns and suburbs, specifically in neighborhoods related to historical redlining.[forty three][44] Arlington had the maximum code orange days in 2020 for excessive ozone pollutants in the air, with seven, accompanied by Fairfax County with four.[45] Exposure of particulate count number in Virginia’s air has reduced 49% from thirteen.5 micrograms in step with cubic meter in 2003 to 6.9 in 2020.[46] The closure and conversion of coal power flora in Virginia and the Ohio Valley place has decreased haze within the mountains, which peaked in 1998.[forty seven] Coal has declined as a source of Virginia’s strength from forty four% in 2008 to simply 4% in 2019,[forty eight] and contemporary plans name for 30% of the Commonwealth’s power to be renewable by means of 2030 and for all to be carbon-free through 2050.[forty nine]

Ecosystem

Forests cover 62% of Virginia as of 2019, of which seventy eight% is taken into consideration hardwood wooded area, meaning that bushes in Virginia are in general deciduous and vast-leaved. The different 22% is pine, with Loblolly and shortleaf pine dominating an awful lot of valuable and eastern Virginia.[50] In the western and mountainous elements of the Commonwealth, all rightand hickory are maximum not unusual, at the same time as lower altitudes are more likely to have small however dense stands of moisture-loving hemlocks and mosses in abundance.[34] Gypsy moth infestations in o.k.trees and the blight in chestnut bushes have reduced each of their numbers, leaving more room for hickory and invasive ailanthus timber.[51][34] In the lowland tidewater and Piedmont, yellow pines tend to dominate, with bald cypress wetland forests in the Great Dismal and Nottoway swamps.[50] Other not unusual trees and plant life include purple bay, wax myrtle, dwarf palmetto, tulip poplar, mountain laurel, milkweed, daisies, ferns, and Virginia creeper, which is featured at the nation flag. The largest areas of wasteland are alongside the Atlantic coast and within the western mountains, wherein the largest populations of trillium wildflowers in North America are determined.[34]

As of June 2019, kind of 16.2% of land inside the Commonwealth is included through federal, country, and nearby governments and non-earnings.[fifty four] Federal lands account for the majority, with thirty National Park Service units in the country, which includes Great Falls Park and the Appalachian Trail, and one national park, Shenandoah.[55] Shenandoah become installed in 1935 and encompasses the scenic Skyline Drive. Almost 40 percent of the park’s overall 199,173 acres (806 km2) place has been specified as wilderness under the National Wilderness Preservation System. The U.S. Forest Service administers the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, which cover extra than 1.6 million acres (6,500 km2) inside Virginia’s mountains, and retain into West Virginia and Kentucky.[fifty seven] The Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge additionally extends into North Carolina, as does the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge, which marks the start of the Outer Banks.

State businesses control about one-0.33 of covered land inside the kingdom,[fifty four] and the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation manages over seventy five,900 acres (307.2 km2) in 40 Virginia state parks and 59,222 acres (239.7 km2) in 65 Natural Area Preserves, plus three undeveloped parks.[fifty nine][60] Breaks Interstate Park crosses the Kentucky border and is one among handiest two inter-nation parks inside the United States.[61] Virginia lets in sustainable logging in 26 kingdom forests controlled via the Virginia Department of Forestry totaling 71,972 acres (291.three km2),[62] and hunting in 44 Wildlife Management Areas run by using the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources masking over 205,000 acres (829.6 km2).[sixty three] The Chesapeake Bay is not a country wide park, however is covered by using each state and federal law and the inter-nation Chesapeake Bay Program, which conducts recovery on the bay and its watershed.[64]

Wildlife

White-tailed deer, considered one of 75 mammal species recorded in Virginia, rebounded from an envisioned populace of as few as 25 thousand inside the 1930s to over a million with the aid of the 2010s.[sixty six][67] Native carnivorans encompass black bears, who have a population of round 5 to 6 thousand inside the state,[sixty eight] in addition to bobcats, coyotes, both grey and crimson foxes, raccoons, and skunks. Rodents encompass groundhogs, weasels, nutria, beavers, both gray squirrels and fox squirrels, chipmunks, and Allegheny woodrats, even as the 17 bat species consist of brown bats and the Virginia massive-eared bat, the state mammal.[69][67] The Virginia opossum is also the handiest marsupial native to america and Canada,[70] and the native Appalachian cottontail became recognized in 1992 as a distinct species of rabbit, certainly one of three found within the kingdom.[seventy one] Whales, dolphins, and porpoises have additionally been recorded in Virginia’s coastal waters, with bottlenose dolphins being the maximum common aquatic mammals.[sixty seven]

Virginia’s bird fauna consists of 422 counted species, of which 359 are regularly taking place, 41 are unintentional (vagrant), 20 are hypothetical, andare extinct; of the frequently taking place species, 214 have bred in Virginia, whilst the relaxation are iciness citizens or transients in Virginia.[72] Water birds encompass sandpipers, wooden ducks, and Virginia rail, while commonplace inland examples consist of warblers, woodpeckers, and cardinals, the country hen, and birds of prey encompass osprey, extensive-winged hawks, and barred owls.[seventy three] There are not any species of chook endemic to the Commonwealth.[72] Audubon acknowledges 21 Important Bird Areas in the nation.[74] Peregrine falcons, whose numbers dramatically declined due to DDT pesticide poisoning within the center of the twentieth century, are the point of interest of conservation efforts within the country and a reintroduction program in Shenandoah National Park.[75]

Virginia has 226 species of freshwater fish from 25 households; the state’s numerous array of fish species is resulting from its varied and humid climate, topography, interconnected river device, and shortage of Pleistocene glaciers. The kingdom’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 location; brook trout, the country fish, and Kanawha darter within the Blue Ridge; stripeback darter and Roanoke bass within the Piedmont; and swampfish, bluespotted sunfish, and pirate perch in the Tidewater.[seventy six] The Chesapeake Bay is host to clams, oysters, and 350 species of saltwater and estuarine fish, consisting of the bay’s most plentiful finfish, the Bay anchovy, in addition to the invasive blue catfish.[seventy seven][78] An envisioned 405 million Chesapeake blue crabs live in the bay as of 2020.[79] There are 34 native species of crayfish, like the Big Sandy, which frequently inhabit rocky bottomed streambeds.[eighty][34] Amphibians determined in Virginia include the Cumberland Plateau salamander and Eastern hellbender.[eighty one]

History

Virginia celebrated its quadricentennial yr in 2007, marking 400 years for the reason that status quo of the Jamestown Colony. The observances highlighted contributions from Native Americans, Africans, and Europeans, each of which had a large part in shaping Virginia’s records.[84] Warfare, which includes among these companies, has additionally had an essential role. Virginia was a focal point in conflicts from the French and Indian War, the American Revolution and the Civil War, to the Cold War and the War on Terrorism.[eighty five] Fictionalized testimonies about the early colony, specially the tale of Pocahontas and John Smith, first have become popular within the length after the Revolutionary War, and together with different myths surrounding George Washington’s adolescence and the plantation elite within the antebellum length, have become touchstones of Virginian and American lifestyle and helped form the kingdom’s historical politics and ideals.[86][82]

Original population

The first people are predicted to have arrived in Virginia over 12,000 years in the past.[87] By 5,000 years ago, greater everlasting settlements emerged, and farming started out by 900 AD. By 1500, the Algonquian peoples had based cities which include Werowocomoco in the Tidewater vicinity, which they called Tsenacommacah. The other major language businesses within the region had been the Siouan to the west and the Iroquoians, who included the Nottoway and Meherrin, to the north and south. After 1570, the Algonquians consolidated underneath Wahunsenacawh, known in English as Chief Powhatan, in response to threats from those other agencies on their exchange community. Powhatan managed extra than thirty smaller tribes and more than 150 settlements, who shared a common Virginia Algonquian language. In 1607, the local Tidewater population turned into among thirteen,000 and 14,000,[89] however over that century, 3-fourths of the local population in Virginia might die from smallpox and different Old World illnesses.[ninety]

Colony

Several European expeditions, such as a collection of Spanish Jesuits, explored the Chesapeake Bay during the 16th century.[ninety one] To help counter Spain’s colonies in the Caribbean, Queen Elizabeth I of England supported Walter Raleigh’s April 1584 day trip to the Atlantic coast of North America. The name “Virginia” was used by Captain Arthur Barlowe in the expedition’s file, and might were advised that 12 months by means of Raleigh or Elizabeth, possibly noting her repute as the “Virgin Queen” or that they considered the land as being untouched, and might additionally be related to an Algonquin phrase, Wingandacoa or Windgancon, or leader’s call, Wingina, as heard by way of the expedition.[95] Initially the call carried out to the whole coastal region from South Carolina to Maine, plus the island of Bermuda. 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 inventory enterprise that financed a new excursion, which turned into led by Christopher Newport and sailed that December. They landed in Virginia in May 1607, and hooked up a settlement named for the king, Jamestown.

Life inside the colony changed into perilous, and lots of died throughout the Starving Time in 1609 and in a series of conflicts with the Powhatan Confederacy that began in 1610, and flared up once more in 1622, while led by using Powhatan’s brother, Opechancanough.[ninety eight] Only three,four hundred of the 6,000 early settlers had survived through 1624.[ninety nine] However, European call for for tobacco fueled the advent of extra settlers and servants. The headright device tried to remedy the hard work scarcity by offering colonists with land for every indentured servant they transported to Virginia. African people were first imported to Jamestown in 1619 to begin with beneath the rules of indentured servitude. The shift to a machine of African slavery in Virginia changed into propelled by using the felony cases of John Punch, who was sentenced to lifetime slavery for trying to get away servitude in 1640, and of John Casor, who turned into claimed by way of Anthony Johnson as his servant for existence in 1655.[102] Slavery first appears in Virginia statutes in 1661 and 1662, while a law made it hereditary primarily based at the mother’s repute.

Colonists struggled with rule from both the London Company and English monarchy, which took direct manipulate of the colony in 1624. Starting in 1619, colonists pushed for greater neighborhood manage with an elected management, later known as the House of Burgesses, that shared strength with the appointed governors. In 1635, colonists arrested a despised governor and compelled him to return to England in opposition to his will. The turmoil of the English Civil War permitted Virginia even greater autonomy throughout the 1650s, and lots of supporters of the king fled to the colony, turning into known as “Virginia Cavaliers”.[106] Tensions and the geographic differences between the operating and ruling instructions led to publisher 1st baron verulam’s Rebellion in 1676, by which era current and former indentured servants made up as a good deal as 80 percent of the population. The rebels, who burned Jamestown, were in large part from the colony’s frontier, and against the governor’s conciliatory policy towards local tribes. One end result of the riot changed into the signing at Middle Plantation of the Treaty of 1677, which made the signatory tribes tributary states and turned into part of a pattern of appropriating tribal land by means of pressure and treaty.[108]

In 1693, the College of William & Mary become based in Middle Plantation, which become renamed Williamsburg in 1699, while it became the brand new capital of the developing colony. Colonists within the 1700s had been likewise transferring inland, and in 1747, a set of Virginian speculators shaped the Ohio Company, with the backing of the British crown, to begin English agreement and exchange inside the Ohio Country west of the Appalachian Mountains.[a hundred and ten] France, which claimed this area as part of their colony of New France, viewed this as a chance, and the following French and Indian War have become a part of the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763). A armed forces from several British colonies, called the Virginia Regiment, become led by then-Lieutenant Colonel George Washington.[111]

Statehood

The British Parliament’s efforts to levy new taxes following the French and Indian War were deeply unpopular in the colonies. In the House of Burgesses, competition to taxation with out illustration turned into led via Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee, amongst others.[112] Virginians commenced to coordinate their actions with different colonies in 1773, and despatched delegates to the Continental Congress the subsequent yr. After the House of Burgesses changed into dissolved by way of the British governor in 1774, Virginia’s revolutionary leaders endured to control thru 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 turned into then blanketed in a brand new charter. Another Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, drew upon Mason’s paintings in drafting the national Declaration of Independence.[115]

When the American Revolutionary War began in 1776, George Washington was decided on to go the Continental Army, and many Virginians joined the military and other revolutionary militias. Virginia turned into the primary colony to ratify the Articles of Confederation in December 1777.[116] In April 1780, the capital turned into moved to Richmond at the urging of Governor Thomas Jefferson, who feared that Williamsburg’s coastal place might make it prone to British assault. British forces indeed landed around Portsmouth in October 1780, and soldiers underneath Benedict Arnold managed to raid Richmond in January 1781. Though a larger pressure, British indecision and maneuvers by way of Continental Army regiments below the Marquis de Lafayette and the French navy collectively trapped the British navy on the Virginia Peninsula in September 1781, wherein troops underneath George Washington and Comte de Rochambeau converged and defeated British General Cornwallis within the siege of Yorktown. His surrender on October 19, 1781 caused peace negotiations in Paris and secured the independence of the colonies.

Virginians have been instrumental inside the new usa’s early years and in writing the US Constitution. James Madison drafted the Virginia Plan in 1787 and the Bill of Rights in 1789.[115] Virginia ratified the Constitution on June 25, 1788. The 3-fifths compromise ensured that Virginia, with its large wide variety of slaves, first of all had the biggest 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, although the Virginian area became retroceded in 1846. Virginia is called the “Mother of States” because of its position in being carved into states which include Kentucky, which have become the fifteenth nation in 1792, and for the numbers of American pioneers born in Virginia.[122]

Civil War

In addition to agriculture, slave labor changed into increasingly used in mining, shipbuilding and different industries. Soil exhausted by using years of tobacco farming also driven the plantation financial system to expand westward. The failed slave uprisings of Gabriel Prosser in 1800 and Nat Turner in 1831 but marked the developing resistance to the machine of slavery. One response to Nat Turner’s insurrection via the Virginia government was to set up for ships to move free Blacks to Liberia. On October sixteen, 1859, abolitionist John Brown led a raid on an armory in Harpers Ferry in an try and begin a slave insurrection across the southern states. The polarized country wide reaction to his raid and execution marked a tipping point for individuals who believed the stop of slavery would need to be completed by using pressure.[a hundred twenty five] By 1860, nearly half of a million humans, roughly 31% of the total population of Virginia, were enslaved.

Open warfare started on April 12, 1861 on the Battle of Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the first state to secede from the USA. The subsequent week President Lincoln known as for armed volunteers while in Virginia, a special convention called by means of the General Assembly voted to secede at the circumstance it changed into approved in a referendum the next month. The convention then voted on April 24 to enroll in the Confederate States of America, which named Richmond as its capital on May 20.[122] During the referendum, armed seasoned-Confederate organizations prevented the casting and counting of votes from many northwestern counties that opposed secession. Representatives from 27 of those counties rather attended the Wheeling Convention, which organized a government dependable to the Union and caused the separation of West Virginia as a brand new country.[127]

Union forces reached the outskirts of Richmond by means of June 1862, but Virginian trendy Robert E. Lee took command of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, and repelled the Union navy, led invasions into Union territory, and was named General in Chief of Confederate armies in February 1865. During the warfare, extra battles had been fought in Virginia than anywhere Virginia else, inclusive of the Battles of Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and the concluding Battle of Appomattox Court House, in which Lee surrendered on April nine, 1865. After the capture of Richmond that month, the nation capital changed into briefly moved to Lynchburg,[129] at the same time as the Confederate management fled to Danville. 32,751 Virginians died within the Civil War.[131] Virginia become officially restored to the United States in 1870, because of the work of the Committee of Nine.

Reconstruction and Jim Crow

During the submit-conflict Reconstruction technology, African Americans were capable of unite in communities, in particular around Richmond, Danville, and the Tidewater location, and take a more role in Virginia society, as many accomplished some land possession for the duration of the 1870s.[133] Virginia adopted a charter in 1868 which guaranteed political, civil, and vote casting rights, and supplied for free public faculties. However, with lots of the railroads and different infrastructure investments destroyed for the duration of the Civil War, the Commonwealth changed into deeply in debt, and inside the late 1870s redirected cash from public faculties to pay bondholders. The Readjuster Virginia Party shaped in 1877 and gained legislative strength in 1879 via uniting Black and white Virginians at the back of a shared competition to debt bills and the perceived plantation elites.

The Readjusters targeted on constructing up colleges, like Virginia Tech and Virginia State, and correctly compelled West Virginia to share in the pre-warfare debt.[137] But in 1883, they had been divided by way of a proposed repeal of anti-miscegenation legal guidelines, and days earlier than that yr’s election, a rebellion in Danville related to armed policemen left four Black guys and one white man useless.[138] These events prompted a push via white supremacists to seize political electricity, and segregationists within the Democratic Party gained the legislature that year and maintained manipulate for many years. They handed Jim Crow legal guidelines and in 1902 rewrote the nation charter to encompass a ballottax and different voter registration measures that successfully disenfranchised most African Americans and plenty of poor whites.

New monetary forces might in the meantime industrialize the Commonwealth. Virginian James Albert Bonsack invented the tobacco cigarette rolling machine in 1880 leading to new commercial scale production focused round Richmond. In 1886, railroad magnate Collis Potter Huntington based Newport News Shipbuilding, which was responsible for constructing six World War I-era dreadnoughts, seven battleships, and 25 destroyers for the U.S. Navy from 1907 to 1923. During the struggle, German submarines like U-151 attacked ships out of doors the port. A homecoming parade to honor African-American veterans returning from the struggle changed into attacked in July 1919 as a part of a renewed white-supremacy movement that changed into called Red Summer.[143] During World War II, the shipyard quadrupled its labor force to 70,000 by way of 1943, at the same time as the Radford Arsenal outside Blacksburg had 22,000 employees making explosives.[one hundred forty four]

Civil Rights to provide

Protests towards segregated schools commenced by way of Barbara Rose Johns in 1951 in Farmville brought about the lawsuit Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County. This case, filed through Richmond natives Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill, became determined in 1954 with Brown v. Board of Education, which rejected the segregationist doctrine of “separate but same”. But, in 1956, below the coverage of “large resistance” led by using the influential segregationist Senator Harry F. Byrd and his Byrd Organization, the Commonwealth prohibited desegregated nearby faculties from receiving kingdom or private funding as part of the Stanley Plan. After colleges in lots of districts commenced remaining in September 1958, nation and district courts ruled the plan unconstitutional, and the primary Black college students incorporated faculties in Arlington and Norfolk in January 1959. Prince Edward County replied in June 1959 by means of final their complete school system, till the Supreme Court ordered all Virginia schools to be open and integrated in May 1964.

The civil rights movement gained many contributors in the course of the Sixties. They accomplished the ethical pressure and support to advantage passage of country wide regulation with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 1967, the Supreme Court also struck down the country’s ban on interracial marriage with Loving v. Virginia. From 1969 to 1971, country legislators under Governor Mills Godwin rewrote the constitution, after desires which includes the repeal of Jim Crow laws had been executed. In 1977, Black members became the majority of Richmond’s city council, in 1989, Douglas Wilder have become the primary African American elected as governor in the United States, and in 1992, Bobby Scott have become the first Black congressman from Virginia considering that 1888.[148]

The Cold War caused the expansion of countrywide protection government applications housed in workplaces in Northern Virginia close to Washington, D.C., and correlative populace increase. The Central Intelligence Agency in Langley became worried in numerous Cold War activities, which include because the target of Soviet espionage sports. The Pentagon, constructed for the duration of World War II because the headquarters of the Department of Defense, was one of the objectives of the September 11, 2001 attacks; 189 humans died on the web site whilst a jet passenger aircraft changed into flown into the building.[a hundred and fifty] Mass shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007 and in Virginia Beach in 2019 caused passage of gun manipulate measures in 2020.[151] Racial injustice and the presence of Confederate monuments in Virginia have also brought about massive demonstrations, consisting of in August 2017, while a white supremacist drove his automobile into protesters, killing one, and in June 2020, while protests that have been part of the bigger Black Lives Matter motion delivered approximately the elimination of statues on Monument Avenue in Richmond and some place else.[152]

Cities and cities

Virginia counties and cities by way of population in 2010

Virginia is divided into ninety five counties and 38 independent cities, the latter appearing in lots of approaches as county-equivalents.[153] This wellknown method of treating towns and counties on par with every different is precise to Virginia; handiest three different independent towns exist some place else within the United States, each in a distinctive country.[154] The variations between counties and towns are small and ought to do with how every check new taxes, whether or not a referendum is important to problem bonds, and with the utility of Dillon’s Rule, which limits the authority of towns and counties to countermand acts expressly allowed by means of the General Assembly.[a hundred and fifty five][156] Within counties, there also can be incorporated towns, which operate their very own governments, and unincorporated communities, which don’t. Virginia does not have any in addition political subdivisions, such as villages or townships.

Over 3.1 million people, 36% of Virginians, stay in Northern Virginia, that’s part of the bigger Washington metropolitan place and the Northeast megalopolis.[157] Fairfax County is the most populous locality within the nation, with extra than 1.1 million citizens, although that does not consist of its county seat Fairfax City, that is one of the impartial cities.[158] Fairfax County has a prime urban commercial enterprise and shopping center in Tysons Corner, Virginia’s largest office market.[159] Neighboring Prince William County is Virginia’s 2nd most populous county, with a populace 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 within the state.[158][one hundred sixty] Arlington County is the smallest self-governing county inside the U.S. via land place,[161] and has considered reorganizing as an independent town because of its high density.[155]

Richmond is the capital of Virginia, and its town right has a populace of over 230,000, at the same time as its metropolitan vicinity has over 1.2 million.[162] As of 2019, Virginia Beach is the most populous impartial city in the Commonwealth, with Chesapeake and Norfolk 2nd and 1/3, respectively.[163] The 3 are part of the larger Hampton Roads metropolitan vicinity, which has a populace over 1.7 million people and is the website online of the world’s largest naval base, Naval Station Norfolk.[162][164] Suffolk, which incorporates a portion of the Great Dismal Swamp, is the most important metropolis with the aid of place at 429.1 rectangular miles (1,111 km2).[one hundred sixty five] In western Virginia, Roanoke city and Sir Bernard Law County, a part of the Blacksburg–Christiansburg metropolitan vicinity, both have exceeded a population of over 100,000 because 2018.[166]

vte

Largest Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas in Virginia

U.S. Census Bureau MSA Population Totals 2019

RankNamePop.RankNamePop.Northern VirginiaHampton Roads1

Northern Virginia

3,112,a hundred and five

Danville

a hundred,398RichmondRoanoke2

Hampton Roads

1,718,843

Bristol

92,2023

Richmond

1,291,900

Martinsville

sixty three,1114

Roanoke

313,222

Big Stone Gap

forty one,3645

Lynchburg

263,5666

Charlottesville

218,6157

Blacksburg–Christiansburg

167,5318

Harrisonburg

134,9649

Staunton–Waynesboro

123,12010

Winchester

117,391DemographicsHistorical populationCensus

Pop.%±

1790691,737—1800807,55716.7%1810877,6838.7%1820938,2616.nine%18301,044,05411.three%18401,0.5,227−1.eight%18501,119,3489.2%18601,219,6309.zero%18701,225,1630.5%18801,512,56523.5%18901,655,9809.five%19001,854,18412.zero%19102,061,61211.2%19202,309,18712.zero%19302,421,8514.9%19402,677,77310.6%1950three,318,68023.nine%1960three,966,94919.5%19704,648,49417.2%1980five,346,81815.0%19906,187,35815.7%20007,078,51514.4%20108,001,02413.zero%20208,631,3937.9p.c1790–1900,[167] 1910–2020[168]

The United States Census Bureau observed the country resident population became 8,631,393 on April 1, 2020, a 7.9% boom because the 2010 United States Census. Another 23,149 Virginians live foreign places, giving the nation a total populace of eight,654,542. Virginia has the fourth largest distant places populace of U.S. states because of its federal employees and navy personnel.[three] The beginning price in Virginia become eleven.four consistent with 1,000 over 5 years,[169] and the median age became 38.four years vintage, each equal to the national averages as of 2019.[a hundred and seventy][171] As of 2010, the center of populace was placed in Louisa County, close to Richmond.[172]

Immigration among 2010 and 2018 from outside the United States ended in a net growth of 159,627 human beings, and migration inside the country produced a internet increase of a hundred and fifty five,205 people.[173] Aside from Virginia, the pinnacle start country for Virginians is New York, having overtaken North Carolina within the Nineteen Nineties, with the Northeast accounting for the most important range of domestic migrants into the nation with the aid of region.[174] About twelve percentage of residents were born outside america as of 2020. El Salvador became the most common overseas country of birth, with India, South Korea, Vietnam, Ethiopia, and the Philippines as different not unusual birthplaces.[a hundred seventy five]

Ethnicity

The state’s most populous ethnic group, Non-Hispanic whites, has declined as a proportion of populace from 76% in 1990 to sixty one% in 2019, as other ethnicities have accelerated.[176][177] Immigrants from the islands of Britain and Ireland settled at some stage in the Commonwealth at some stage in the colonial period, a time while more or less three-fourths of immigrants came as indentured servants.[179] Those who perceive on the census as having “American ethnicity” are predominantly of English descent, however have ancestors who have been in North America for goodbye they pick to discover clearly as American.[a hundred and eighty][181] The western mountains have many settlements that were based with the aid of Scotch-Irish immigrants earlier than the American Revolution.[182] There are also good sized numbers of humans of German descent inside the northwestern mountains and Shenandoah Valley,[183] and 10.6% of Virginians are predicted to have German ancestry, as of 2019.[184]

New residents attend a naturalization rite in Northern Virginia, wherein 25% of citizens are foreign-born, nearly twice the general state common[175]

The biggest minority institution in Virginia are Blacks and African Americans, who include about one-5th of the population.[177] Virginia became a chief vacation spot of the Atlantic slave exchange, and the primary generations of enslaved men, ladies, and kids have been brought typically from Angola and the Bight of Biafra. The Igbo ethnic organization of what’s now southern Nigeria had been the unmarried biggest African institution among slaves in Virginia.[185] Blacks in Virginia additionally have extra European ancestry than the ones in different southern states, and DNA analysis suggests many have asymmetrical male and lady ancestry contributions from before the Civil War, evidence of European fathers and African or Native American moms in the course of the time of slavery.[186][187] Though the Black populace was decreased with the aid of the Great Migration to northern commercial cities inside the first 1/2 of the 20th century, due to the fact that 1965 there has been a reverse migration of Blacks returning south.[188] The Commonwealth has the highest wide variety of Black-white interracial marriages within the United States,[189] and three.2% of Virginians describe themselves as biracial.[177]

More latest immigration inside the overdue 20th century and early twenty first century has led to new communities of Hispanics and Asians. As of 2019, nine.eight% of Virginia’s total populace describe themselves as Hispanic or Latino, and six.9% as Asian.[177] The nation’s Hispanic populace rose via ninety two% from 2000 to 2010, with two-thirds of Hispanics in the state dwelling in Northern Virginia.[one hundred ninety] Hispanic citizens in Virginia have better median family incomes and educational attainment than the general nation population.[191] Northern Virginia also has a great population of Vietnamese Americans, whose principal wave of immigration accompanied the Vietnam War.[192] Korean Americans have migrated more currently, attracted by means of the high-quality college gadget.[193] The Filipino American network has approximately forty five,000 in the Hampton Roads place, many of whom have ties to the U.S. Navy and army.[194]

Tribal membership in Virginia is complex via the legacy of the state’s “pencil genocide” of deliberately categorizing Native Americans and Blacks together, and lots of tribal participants do have African and European ancestry.[195] In 2019, the U.S. Census Bureau expected that 0.5% of Virginians have been American Indian or Alaska Native, and 0.1% had been Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander.[177] Virginia has prolonged kingdom recognition to eleven indigenous tribes resident within the country. Seven tribes also have federal reputation, including six that were identified in 2018 after passage of invoice named for activist Thomasina Jordan.[196][197] The Pamunkey and Mattaponi have reservations on tributaries of the York River in the Tidewater vicinity.[198]

Ethnicity (2019 est.)Largest ancestries by way of countyAncestry (2019 est.)Non-Hispanic white61.2%

American Community Survey 5-year estimate

German10.6percentBlack or African American19.9p.cIrish or Scotch-Irish10.5%Hispanic or Latino (of any race)9.8percentAmerican9.7p.cAsian6.9p.cEnglish9.2percentAmerican Indian and Alaska Native0.5percentSubsaharan African2.3p.cLanguages

As of 2010, eighty five.9% (6,299,127) of Virginia citizens age five and older spoke English at home as a first language, while 14.1% (1,036,442) did not—6.four% (470,058) spoke Spanish, 0.eight% (fifty six,518) Korean, zero.6% (45,881) Vietnamese, zero.6% (forty two,418) Chinese (consisting of Mandarin), and zero.6% (forty,724) Tagalog.[199] English was handed as the Commonwealth’s official language by statutes in 1981 and again in 1996, although the fame isn’t mandated by the Constitution of Virginia.

The Piedmont area is understood for its dialect’s sturdy impact on Southern American English. While a extra homogenized American English is observed in urban areas, diverse accents are also used, which includes the Tidewater accessory, the Old Virginia accessory, and the anachronistic Elizabethan of Tangier Island.[201][202]

Religion

Virginia is predominantly Christian and Protestant; Baptist denominations combined to shape biggest institution with over 1 / 4 of the populace as of 2014,[203] and round 763,655 total contributors as of 2010.[204] Baptist denominational organizations in Virginia encompass the Baptist General Association of Virginia, with approximately 1,400 member church buildings, which helps each the Southern Baptist Convention and the mild Cooperative Baptist Fellowship; and the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia with more than 500 affiliated churches, which supports the Southern Baptist Convention.[205][206] Roman Catholics are the second-biggest spiritual institution with 673,853 participants.[204] The Roman Catholic Diocese of Arlington consists of most of Northern Virginia’s Catholic churches, even as the Diocese of Richmond covers the relaxation.

The Virginia Conference is the regional frame of the United Methodist Church in maximum of the Commonwealth, at the same time as the Holston Conference represents plenty of excessive Southwest Virginia. The Virginia Synod is chargeable for the congregations of the Lutheran Church. Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Congregationalist, and Episcopalian adherents each comprised much less thanpercentage of the population as of 2010.[204] The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, Southern Virginia, and Southwestern Virginia assist the numerous Episcopal churches.

In November 2006, fifteen conservative Episcopal churches voted to break up from the Diocese of Virginia over the ordination of overtly gay bishops and clergy in different dioceses of the Episcopal Church; these church buildings keep to claim affiliation with the bigger Anglican Communion through different our bodies outside the USA. Though Virginia law permits parishioners to determine their church’s affiliation, the diocese claimed the secessionist church buildings’ buildings and residences. The resulting belongings law case, in the end decided in want of the mainline diocese, was a test for Episcopal churches national.[208]

Among other religions, adherents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints constitute one percent of the population, withhundred congregations in Virginia as of 2017.[209] Fairfax Station is the site of the Ekoji Buddhist Temple, of the Jodo Shinshu college, and the Hindu Durga Temple. Sterling is the home base of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, which, with its eleven satellite tv for pc branches, considers itself the second one largest Muslim mosque community inside the us of a.[210] While the state’s Jewish populace is small, prepared Jewish websites date to 1789 with Congregation Beth Ahabah. Megachurches within the Commonwealth encompass Thomas Road Baptist Church, Immanuel Bible Church, and McLean Bible Church,[212] and the twenty percent who describe themselves as unaffiliated also encompass seven percentage who say faith is essential to them, but won’t attend ordinary services with formal club.[213] Several Christian universities also are based in the kingdom, which include Regent University, Liberty University, and the University of Lynchburg.

Economy

Virginia counties and cities by means of median household earnings (2010)

Virginia’s economic system has numerous assets of earnings, which includes local and federal authorities, navy, farming and high-tech. The kingdom’s common profits in step with job turned into $63,281, the 11th-highest national,[214] and the gross home product (GDP) became $476.four billion in 2018, the 13th-largest among U.S. states.[215] Prior to the COVID-19 recession, in March 2020, Virginia had four.36 million human beings employed with an unemployment price of two.9%,[216] however jobless claims because of the virus soared over 10% in early April 2020,[217] earlier than leaving off around five% in November 2020.[218] In May 2021, it changed into four.five%, which became the nineteenth-lowest national.[219] Virginia but ranked worst in the state for timely overview of unemployment benefits because of the pandemic.[220]

Virginia has an average family income of $seventy two,600, 11th-highest nationwide, and a poverty price of 10.7%, 12th-lowest nationwide, as of 2018. 1st viscount montgomery of alamein County out of doors Blacksburg has the best poverty charge within the state, with 28.5% falling below the U.S. Census poverty thresholds. Loudoun County in the meantime has the highest median family profits in the kingdom, and the wider Northern Virginia vicinity is a few of the maximum-earnings regions nationwide.[221] As of 2013, six of the twenty maximum-profits counties within the United States, which include the two maximum,[222] as well as three of the fifty maximum-income towns, are all positioned in Northern Virginia.[223] Though the Gini index shows Virginia has less income inequality than the countrywide common,[224] the country’s center class is likewise smaller than the bulk of states.[225]

Virginia’s enterprise environment has been ranked notably via various courses. In 2021, CNBC named Virginia their Top State for Business, with its deductions being mainly for the excessive value of living,[226] even as Forbes magazine ranked it fourth, although number one in great of lifestyles.[227] Additionally, in 2014 a survey of 12,000 small commercial enterprise owners found Virginia to be one of the maximum pleasant states for small corporations.[228] Oxfam America however ranked Virginia in November 2020 as the fourteenth worst country to work in, with pluses for brand spanking new worker protections from sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination, but negatives for legal guidelines on organized exertions and the low minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.[229] Virginia has been an employment-at-will nation considering the fact that 1906 and a “proper to work” kingdom due to the fact 1947.[230][231] The minimal salary turned into raised to $nine.50 an hour in April 2021, with plans to growth it to $12 in 2023.[232]

Government

Government businesses directly hire round seven-hundred,000 humans, nearly 17% of all employees, as of 2021.[234] Approximately twelve percentage of all U.S. federal procurement cash is spent in Virginia, the second-highest quantity after California.[235][236] As of September 2019, 124,870 energetic-responsibility employees and ninety eight,506 civilians paintings at once for the U.S. Department of Defense throughout the 27 navy bases inside the country and the headquarters at the Pentagon,[237] and over 139,000 Virginians work for protection contracting companies, which obtained over $37.4 billion worth of contracts inside the 2018 fiscal 12 months.[238] Virginia has one of the highest concentrations of veterans of any country,[239] and the Hampton Roads area has the most important attention of military employees and belongings of any metropolitan region within the world.[240]

Other huge federal organizations in Northern Virginia include the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. In its kingdom government, Virginia employs over 106,000 public employees, who combined have an average earnings of $fifty two,401 as of November 2018.[241]

Business

Virginia became home to 653,193 separate corporations in the 2012 U.S. Census Survey of Business Owners, with 54% of those majority male-owned and 36.2% majority lady-owned. Approximately 28.three% of companies have been also majority minority-owned, and eleven.7% had been veteran-owned.[242] Twenty-one Fortune 500 corporations are established in Virginia as of 2019, with the biggest companies through sales being Freddie Mac, General Dynamics, and Capital One.[243] The largest by means of their quantity of personnel are Dollar Tree in Chesapeake and Hilton Worldwide Holdings in McLean.[244]

Virginia has the 0.33 maximum attention of era employees and the 5th maximum ordinary variety among U.S. states as of 2020, with the 451,268 tech jobs accounting for eleven.1% of all jobs in the nation and incomes an average profits of $98,292.[245] Many of those jobs are in Northern Virginia, which hosts a massive number of software program, communications, and cybersecurity businesses, particularly inside the Dulles Technology Corridor and Tysons Corner regions. Amazon moreover selected Crystal City for its HQ2 in 2018, while Google increased their Reston offices in 2019. Virginia became the worlds largest facts center marketplace in 2016, with Loudoun County specifically branding itself “Data Center Alley” due to the more or less 13.5 million square toes (1.25 km2) in use for records.[246][247] In 2020, the country had the second one maximum average internet down load speeds inside the United States, with 193.1 Mbps.[248] Computer chips first have become the nation’s maximum-grossing export in 2006,[249] and had a complete export cost of $827 million in 2020.[250] Though within the pinnacle quartile for variety based totally at the Simpson index, handiest 26% of tech employees in Virginia are women, and only 13% are Black or African American.[245]

Tourism in Virginia supported an anticipated 234,000 jobs in 2018, making tourism the kingdom’s fifth largest industry. It generated $26 billion, an boom 4.four% from 2017.[251] The kingdom become 8th nationwide in home travel spending in 2018, with Arlington County the pinnacle vacationer vacation spot in the nation by way of home spending, accompanied by way of Fairfax County, Loudoun County, and Virginia Beach.[252] Virginia additionally noticed 1.1 million global travelers in 2018, a five percentage boom from 2017.[253]

Agriculture

As of 2017, agriculture occupied 28% of the land in Virginia with 7.8 million acres (12,188 squaremi; 31,565 km2) of farmland. Nearly 54,000 Virginians work at the country’s forty three,225 farms, which common 181 acres (zero.28 sq.mi; 0.73 km2). Though agriculture has declined considerably considering the fact that 1960 while there have been twice as many farms, it stays the biggest unmarried industry in Virginia, providing for over 334,000 jobs.[255] Soybeans had been the maximum worthwhile crop in Virginia in 2017, in advance of corn and reduce plants as different main agricultural products.[256] However, the continuing China-U.S. exchange struggle led many Virginia farmers to plant cotton instead of soybeans in 2019.[257] Though it’s far not the number one crop, Virginia continues to be the third-biggest manufacturer of tobacco in the United States.[255]

Virginia is likewise the u . s .’s 0.33-largest producer of seafood as of 2018, with sea scallops, oysters, Chesapeake blue crabs, menhaden, and hardshell clams as the biggest seafood harvests by using price, and France, Canada, and Hong Kong because the top export locations.[258][259] Commercial fishing supports 18,220 jobs as of 2020, whilst pastime fishing helps another 5,893.[260] Eastern oyster harvests had elevated from 23,000 bushels in 2001 to over 500,000 in 2013,[261] but fell to 248,347 in 2019 because of low salinity in coastal waters because of heavy spring rains.[262] Those identical rains however made 2019 a record wine harvest for vineyards inside the Northern Neck and alongside the Blue Ridge Mountains, which additionally attract 2.three million tourists yearly.[263][264] Virginia has the 7th-highest variety of wineries in the nation, with 307 as of 2020.[265] Cabernet franc and Chardonnay are the most grown varieties.[266]

Taxes

Virginia collects personal income tax from those with earning above a filing threshold; there are five profits brackets, with rates starting from 2.0% to five.75% of taxable income.[267][268] The kingdom sales and use tax rate is four.3%. There is an extra 1% neighborhood tax, for a total of a 5.three% mixed income tax on maximum Virginia purchases. The income tax fee is better in 3 areas: Northern Virginia (6%), Hampton Roads (6%) and the Historic Triangle (7%).[269] Unlike the bulk of states, Virginia collects income tax on groceries, however at a decrease price than the overall sales tax;[270] the sales tax for food and positive important non-public hygiene items is two.five%.[269]

Virginia’s belongings tax is ready and accumulated on the nearby government level and varies at some point of the Commonwealth. Real estate is likewise taxed on the nearby degree primarily based on 100% of fair marketplace fee.[271] As of economic 12 months 2018, the median actual property tax rate consistent with $a hundred of assessed taxable price was $1.07 for towns, $0.67 for counties, and $zero.17 for cities; metropolis charges are decrease due to the fact towns (unlike towns) have a slim variety of duties and are subordinate to counties.[272] Of neighborhood government tax sales, about 61% is generated from real assets taxes; approximately 24% from tangible non-public property, sales and use, and enterprise license tax; and 15% from different taxes (along with restaurant meal taxes, public service enterprise belongings tax, client software tax, and inn tax).[273]

Culture

Colonial Virginian subculture, language, and fashion are reenacted in Williamsburg.

Virginia’s tradition become popularized and unfold throughout America and the South by means of figures including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Robert E. Lee. Their homes in Virginia represent the birthplace of America and the South. Modern Virginia way of life has many sources, and is a part of the way of life of the Southern United States. The Smithsonian Institution divides Virginia into nine cultural regions.[276]

Besides the overall delicacies of the Southern United States, Virginia keeps its very own particular traditions. Virginia wine is made in lots of parts of the Commonwealth.[264] Smithfield ham, from time to time known as “Virginia ham”, is a kind of united states of america ham which is blanketed by state regulation, and can be produced most effective within the metropolis of Smithfield. Virginia fixtures and structure are typical of American colonial structure. Thomas Jefferson and a few of the Commonwealth’s early leaders preferred the Neoclassical structure fashion, main to its use for crucial state buildings. The Pennsylvania Dutch and their fashion can also be discovered in elements of the Commonwealth.[183]

Literature in Virginia frequently offers with the Commonwealth’s extensive and every now and then troubled past. The works of Pulitzer Prize winner Ellen Glasgow regularly treated social inequalities and the position of ladies in her culture. Glasgow’s peer and near friend James Branch Cabell wrote extensively about the changing position of gentry within the Reconstruction era, and challenged its ethical code with Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice.[279] William Styron approached records in works which include The Confessions of Nat Turner and Sophie’s Choice.[280] Tom Virginia Wolfe has now and again dealt with his southern historical past in bestsellers like I Am Charlotte Simmons.[281] Mount Vernon local Matt Bondurant obtained important approval for his historic novel The Wettest County inside the World about moonshiners in Franklin County at some point of prohibition.[282] Virginia additionally names a state Poet Laureate.[283]

Fine and appearing arts

Virginia ranks near the middle of U.S. states in phrases of public spending on the humanities as of 2021, at just over half of of the country wide average.[284] The country authorities does fund a few institutions, together with 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. Besides these web sites, many open-air museums are positioned inside the Commonwealth, including Colonial Williamsburg, the Frontier Culture Museum, and diverse historical battlefields. The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities works to enhance the Commonwealth’s civic, cultural, and highbrow existence.[287]

Theaters and venues in the Commonwealth are found both within the cities and in suburbs. The Harrison Opera House, in Norfolk, is domestic of the Virginia Opera. The Virginia Symphony Orchestra operates in and round Hampton Roads. Resident and touring theater troupes function from the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton. The Barter Theatre in Abingdon, certain the State Theatre of Virginia, received the first Regional Theatre Tony Award in 1948, even as the Signature Theatre in Arlington gained it in 2009. There is likewise a Children’s Theater of Virginia, Theatre IV, which is the second largest traveling troupe nationwide.[290] Notable track overall performance venues consist of The Birchmere, the Landmark Theater, and Jiffy Lube Live. Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts is positioned in Vienna and is the best national park supposed for use as a appearing arts middle.[292]

Virginia has launched many award-triumphing traditional musical artists and the world over a success famous music acts, in addition to Hollywood actors.[1] Virginia is understood for its culture inside the music genres of old-time string and bluegrass, with organizations along with the Carter Family and Stanley Brothers.[293] The state’s African subculture is determined through gospel, blues, and shout bands, with both Ella Fitzgerald and Pearl Bailey coming from Newport News.[294] Contemporary Virginia is likewise recognized 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 metallic corporations like GWAR and Lamb of God.[295] Several participants of us of a track band Old Dominion grew up inside the Roanoke area, and took their band call from Virginia’s state nickname.[296]

Festivals

Many counties and localities host county fairs and festivals. The Virginia State Fair is held on the Meadow Event Park each September. Also in September is the Neptune Festival in Virginia Beach, which celebrates the town, the waterfront, and regional artists. Norfolk’s Harborfest, in June, features boat racing and air suggests. Fairfax County additionally sponsors Celebrate Fairfax! with popular and conventional music performances.[298] The Virginia Lake Festival is held throughout the 1/3 weekend in July in Clarksville.[299] On the Eastern Shore island of Chincoteague the once a year Pony Penning of feral Chincoteague ponies on the quit of July is a unique nearby way of life multiplied into per week-lengthy carnival.[300]

The Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival is a six-day pageant held annually in Winchester which includes parades and bluegrass concert events. The Old Time Fiddlers’ Convention in Galax, begun in 1935, is one of the oldest and largest such occasions global, and Wolf Trap hosts the Wolf Trap Opera Company, which produces an opera competition every summer.[292] Two vital film fairs, the Virginia Film Festival and the VCU French Film Festival, are held yearly in Charlottesville and Richmond, respectively.

Media

USA Today, the nation’s maximum circulated newspaper, has its headquarters in McLean.

The Hampton Roads region is the forty second-largest media marketplace inside the United States as ranked by means of Nielsen Media Research, while the Richmond-Petersburg place is 54th and Roanoke-Lynchburg is 69th as of 2020. Northern Virginia is part of the lots large Washington, D.C. media marketplace, that’s the united states’s seventh-largest.[302]

There are 36 television stations in Virginia, representing each predominant U.S. network, part of forty two stations which serve Virginia visitors along with those broadcasting from neighboring jurisdictions.[303] According the Federal Communications Commission, 595 FCC-licensed FM radio stations broadcast in Virginia, with 239 such AM stations as of 2020.[304][305] The nationally available Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is founded in Arlington. Independent PBS associates exist in the course of Virginia, and the Arlington PBS member station WETA-TV produces packages which include the PBS NewsHour and Washington Week.

The maximum circulated local newspapers in the Commonwealth are Norfolk’s The Virginian-Pilot with round 132,000 subscribers,[306] the Richmond Times-Dispatch with 86,219,[307] and The Roanoke Times as of 2018.[308] The paper with country’s most each day readers, USA Today, with 520,000 each day subscriptions, is established in McLean.[309] USA Today is the flagship book of Gannett, Inc., which merged with GateHouse Media in 2019, and operates over a hundred nearby newspapers national.[310] In Northern Virginia, The Washington Post is the dominant newspaper and gives local insurance for the vicinity.[311] Politico, which covers countrywide politics, has its workplaces in Rosslyn.[312]

Education

Virginia’s public schools serve over one million students at over 2,2 hundred colleges.

Virginia’s instructional machine always ranks inside the pinnacle five states at the U.S. Department of Education’s National Assessment of Educational Progress, with Virginia college students outperforming the average in all challenge regions and grade stages examined.[313] The 2020 Quality Counts report ranked Virginia’s K–12 education 8th inside the united states, with a letter grade of B.[314] All faculty divisions must adhere to instructional requirements set forth by the Virginia Department of Education, which maintains an evaluation and accreditation regime referred to as the Standards of Learning to make certain duty.[315]

Public K–12 faculties in Virginia are normally operated through the counties and cities, and now not via the country. As off the 2018–19 educational 12 months, a complete of one,290,576 college students were enrolled in 2,293 nearby and regional colleges in the Commonwealth, such as 8 charter colleges, and an extra 98 opportunity and unique education centers throughout 133 school divisions.[316][317] 2018 marked the first decline in normal enrollment in public colleges, by means of just over 2,000 students, in view that 1984.[318] Besides the overall public faculties in Virginia, there are Governor’s Schools and selective magnet faculties. The Governor’s Schools are a group of extra than 40 regional high colleges and summer time programs intended for presented college students.[319] The Virginia Council for Private Education oversees the regulation of 483 country approved private faculties.[320] An extra 17,283 students acquire homeschooling.[321]

In 2019, 91.five% of excessive faculty students graduated on-time after 4 years,[322] an boom ofpercentage from 2013,[323] and 89.3% of adults over the age 25 had their excessive college diploma.[177] Virginia has one of the smaller racial gaps in graduation rates amongst U.S. states,[324] with 89.7% of Black college students graduating on time, in comparison to ninety four.7% of white college students and 97.five% of Asian college students.[322] Despite ending faculty segregation in the 1960s, seven percent of Virginia’s public colleges had been rated as “intensely segregated” by way of The Civil Rights Project at UCLA in 2019, and the quantity has risen due to the fact that 1989, when handiest three percentage had been.[325] Virginia has comparatively huge public faculty districts, generally comprising entire counties or towns, and this enables mitigate funding gaps visible in other states such that non-white districts common barely more investment, $255 in keeping with student as of 2019, than majority white districts.[326] Elementary schools, with Virginia’s smallest districts, have been discovered to be more segregated than nation center or high schools by means of a 2019 VCU look at.[327]

Colleges and universities

As of 2019, Virginia has the sixth maximum percent of residents with bachelor’s degrees or better, with 38.2%.[177] As of that 12 months, there are 169 schools and universities in Virginia.[329] In the 2021 U.S. News & World Report ranking of countrywide public universities, the University of Virginia is ranked 4th, the College of William and Mary is eleventh, Virginia Tech is 29th, George Mason University is sixty fifth, and Virginia Commonwealth University is 77th.[330] James Madison University is likewise ranked the 1/3 high-quality nearby college within the South.[331] There are 124 personal institutions in the state, inclusive of Washington and Lee University and the University of Richmond, which can be ranked because the united states’s ninth and 22nd high-quality liberal arts colleges respectively.[329][332]

Virginia Tech and Virginia State University are the country’s land-provide universities, and Virginia State is one in all five traditionally black faculties and universities in Virginia.[333] The Virginia Military Institute is the oldest kingdom military college.[334] Virginia additionally operates 23 network faculties on 40 campuses which enrolled 218,985 degree-in search of students all through the 2020–2021 faculty yr.[335] In 2021, the nation made community university loose for maximum low- and center-profits students.[336] George Mason University had the biggest on-campus enrollment at 38,542 college students as of 2021,[337] though the personal Liberty University had the biggest total enrollment within the country, with 88,283 on line and 15,105 on-campus college students in Lynchburg as of 2019.[338]

Health

Virginia has a mixed health document, and become ranked because the twenty first for both standard health consequences and healthy behaviors in the country in step with the 2020 United Health Foundation’s Health Rankings. Among U.S. states, Virginia has the 19th lowest rate of both premature deaths, with 6,863 in keeping with a hundred,000,[46] and toddler mortality, with 5.sixty one per 1,000 stay births.[340] The charge of uninsured Virginians dropped to 7.9% in 2020, following an expansion of Medicare the 12 months earlier than.[forty six] Falls Church and Loudoun County were each ranked within the pinnacle ten healthiest groups in 2020 by means of U.S. News & World Report.[341]

There are but racial and social fitness disparities. With excessive fees of heart disorder and diabetes, African Americans in Virginia had a median life expectancy four years lower than whites and twelve years decrease than Asian Americans and Latinos in 2017,[342] and had been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 at some stage in the coronavirus pandemic.[343] African-American moms also are three times much more likely to die even as giving start inside the state.[344] Mortality prices among white center-class Virginians have additionally been rising, with drug overdose, alcohol poisoning, and suicide as leading reasons.[345] Suicides within the state multiplied via 21% among 2009 and 2018.[forty six]

Weight is an issue for many Virginians, and 31.nine% of adults and 13% of 10- to 17-yr-olds are overweight as of 2020.[46][346] Additionally, 35% of adults are overweight and 23.3% do not exercising regularly.[347] Virginia banned smoking in bars and restaurants in January 2010,[348] and the percentage of tobacco smokers inside the state has declined from nineteen percentage in that 12 months to 14 percentage in 2020. Virginia does have above average costs of immunization national, rating eighteenth for adolescence immunization and 11th for flu vaccinations.[46] In 2008, Virginia became the primary U.S. kingdom to mandate the HPV vaccine for women for faculty attendance,[349] and 55.2% of adolescents have the vaccine.[forty six]

The Virginia Board of Health regulates fitness care centers, and there are ninety hospitals in Virginia with a combined 17,706 health center beds as of 2020.[350] Notable examples include Inova Fairfax Hospital, the biggest hospital inside the Washington Metropolitan Area, and the VCU Medical Center, located at the clinical campus of Virginia Commonwealth University. The University of Virginia Medical Center, a part of the University of Virginia Health System, is pretty ranked in endocrinology consistent with U.S. News & World Report.[351] Virginia has a ratio of 230.three primary care physicians in keeping with 10,000 citizens, the 15th worst rate nationally, and most effective 193.2 intellectual health carriers according to that wide variety, the eleventh worst nationwide.[forty six] As of 2021, the state’s 8 public mental health care centers have been 96% complete, inflicting delays in admissions.[352]

Transportation

Because of the 1932 Byrd Road Act, the nation authorities controls most of Virginia’s roads, in preference to a local county authority as is common in other states.[353] As of 2018, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) owns and operates fifty seven,867 miles (93,128 km) of the full 70,105 miles (112,823 km) of roads within the kingdom, making it the 1/3 biggest state toll road machine within the United States.[354] Traffic on Virginia’s roads is a few of the worst in the nation consistent with the 2019 American Community Survey. The average travel time of 28.7 mins is the eighth longest amongst U.S. states, and the Washington Metropolitan Area, which includes Northern Virginia, has the second one worst charge of visitors congestion amongst U.S. cities.[355] About 9.2% of employees in Virginia said carpooling to paintings in 2019,[356] and Virginia hit height vehicle utilization earlier than the year 2000, making it one of the first such states.[357]

About four.4% of Virginians commute on public transit,[356] and there have been over 171.9 million public transit trips in Virginia in 2019, over 62% of which have been finished at the Washington Metro transit gadget, which serves Arlington and Alexandria, and extends into Loudoun and Fairfax Counties.[358] Virginia has Amtrak passenger rail provider along numerous corridors, and Virginia Railway Express (VRE) maintainscommuter traces into Washington, D.C. from Fredericksburg and Manassas. VRE averaged over ninety,000 weekly riders in 2019, however saw a dramatic ninety% decline in ridership because of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.[359] Major freight railroads in Virginia include Norfolk Southern and CSX Transportation, and in 2021 the country finalized a deal to buy 223 miles (359 km) of music and over 350 miles (560 km) of proper of way from CSX for future passenger rail provider.[360] Commuter buses include the Fairfax Connector, FRED buses in Fredericksburg, and OmniRide in Prince William County.[361] VDOT operates several unfastened ferries in the course of Virginia, the maximum exceptional being the Jamestown Ferry which connects Jamestown to Scotland Wharf across the James River.[362]

Virginia has 5 main airports: Washington Dulles International and Reagan Washington National in Northern Virginia, both of which deal with extra than twenty million passengers a 12 months, Richmond International southeast of the kingdom capital, and Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport and Norfolk International in Hampton Roads. Several other airports provide confined industrial passenger provider, and sixty-six public airports serve the country’s aviation wishes.[363] The Virginia Port Authority’s most important seaports are the ones in Hampton Roads, which carried 60,014,070 quick heaps (fifty four,443,850 t) of overall cargo in 2019, the seventh most of United States ports.[364] The Eastern Shore of Virginia is the website of Wallops Flight Facility, a rocket release middle owned via NASA, and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, a business spaceport.[366] Space tourism is also offered via Vienna-primarily based Space Adventures.[367]

Law and government

In 1619, the primary Virginia General Assembly met at Jamestown Church, and blanketed 22 locally elected representatives, making Virginia’s legislature the oldest within the North America.[7] The elected individuals became the House of Burgesses in 1642, and governed with the Governor’s Council, which changed into appointed by using the British monarchy, till Virginia declared independence from Britain in 1776. The modern General Assembly is the 161st seeing that that 12 months. The authorities today capabilities under the 7th Constitution of Virginia, which become authorized by means of electorate in 1971 and is just like the federal shape in that it affords for three branches: a robust legislature, an executive, and a unified judicial device.[368]

Virginia’s legislature is bicameral with a 100-member House of Delegates and forty-member Senate, who collectively write the legal guidelines for the Commonwealth. Delegates serve two-year terms, whilst senators serve 4-yr phrases, with the most latest elections for each taking vicinity in November 2019. The government branch consists of the governor, lieutenant governor, and lawyer widespread, who’re elected every four years in separate elections, with the following taking place in November 2021. The governor need to be at the least thirty years antique and incumbent governors can not run for re-election, however the lieutenant governor and lawyer standard can, and governors can and have served non-consecutive terms.[368] The lieutenant governor is the legit head of the Senate, and is answerable for breaking ties. The House elects a Speaker of the House and the Senate elects a President seasoned tempore, who presides whilst the lieutenant governor isn’t always gift, and each houses elect a clerk and majority and minority leaders.[369] The governor additionally nominates their eleven cabinet members and others who head numerous state departments.

State budgets are biannual and proposed by means of the governor in even years.[370] Based on information via 2018, the Pew Center on the States located Virginia’s authorities to be above average in walking surpluses,[371] and U.S. News and World Report ranked the nation eighteenth in economic balance.[372] The legislature begins on the second one Wednesday of each 12 months, and meets for as much as 48 days in abnormal years and 60 days in even years to allow more time for the nation budget.[369] Special classes may be referred to as both by means of the governor or with settlement of two-thirds of both homes, and seventeen special periods were referred to as when you consider that 2000, commonly for regulation on preselected problems.[373] Though no longer a complete-time legislature, the Assembly is classified as a hybrid due to the fact special periods are not limited via the nation charter and frequently remaining several months.[374]

Judicial gadget

Unlike the federal gadget, justices of the Virginia Supreme Court have time period limits and a mandatory retirement age, and choose their very own Chief Justice.

The judges and justices who make up Virginia’s judicial gadget, also the oldest in America, are elected by way of a majority vote in each the House and Senate with out input from the governor, one way Virginia’s legislature is more potent than its executive. The gadget includes a hierarchy from the Supreme Court of Virginia and the Court of Appeals of Virginia to the Circuit Courts, the trial courts of widespread jurisdiction, and the decrease General District Courts and Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Courts.[375] The Supreme Court has seven justices who serve twelve-year phrases, with a mandatory retirement age of seventy three. The Supreme Court selects its very own Chief Justice from among their seven individuals, who’s informally restricted to 2 four-yr terms.[376] Virginia was the ultimate state to guarantee an automated right of appeal for all civil and criminal cases, and their Court of Appears is increasing from eleven to seventeen judges in 2021.[377][378]

The Code of Virginia is the statutory law, and includes the codified law of the General Assembly. Virginia has no “pocket veto,” and bills becomes law if the governor chooses to neither approve nor veto legislation.[379] The largest regulation enforcement agency in Virginia is the Virginia State Police, with 3,022 sworn and civilian individuals as of 2018.[380] The Virginia Marine Police patrol coastal areas, and were founded because the “Oyster Navy” in 1864 in response to oyster bed poaching.[381] The Virginia Capitol Police shield the legislature and executive department, and are the oldest police department in the United States.[382] The governor also can name upon the Virginia National Guard, which consists of approximately 7,200 army soldiers, 1,two hundred airmen, three hundred Defense Force contributors, and four hundred civilians.[383]

Virginia abolished the dying penalty in 2021. Over 1,three hundred people had been achieved by using the country considering the fact that 1608, which include 113 following the resumption of capital punishment in 1982.[384] Virginia’s prison system incarcerates 30,936 people as of 2018, 53% of whom are Black,[385] and the state has the 16th-highest fee of incarceration inside the u . s ., at 422 per 100,000 citizens.[386] Virginia ended prisoner parole in 1995.[387] Virginia’s fee of recidivism of released felons who’re re-convicted within 3 years and sentenced to a yr or greater is 23.1%, the bottom within the u . s . as of 2019.[388][389] Virginia has the fourth lowest violent crime rate and 13th lowest belongings crime rate as of 2018.[390] Between 2008 and 2017, arrests for drug-associated crimes rose 38%, with seventy one% of those related to marijuana,[391] which Virginia decriminalized in July 2020 and legalized in July 2021.[392][393]

Politics

Mirroring Virginia’s political transition, the annual Shad Planking occasion in Wakefield has evolved from a vestige of the Byrd technology into a ordinary forestall for lots country campaigns.[394]

Over the past century, Virginia shifted from a largely rural, politically Southern and conservative state to a greater urbanized, pluralistic, and politically mild surroundings as both greater enfranchisement and demographic shifts have modified the electorate. Up till the 1970s, Virginia turned into a racially divided one-birthday celebration state dominated by using the Byrd Organization.[395] They sought to stymie the political energy of Northern Virginia, perpetuate segregation, and efficaciously constrained voter registration such that among 1905 and 1948, kind of one-0.33 of votes in the nation had been solid through country employees and officeholders themselves, and voter turnout changed into regularly beneath ten percentage.[396][397] The organisation used malapportionment to manipulate what regions had been over-represented in the General Assembly and the U.S. Congress until ordered to stop the exercise through the 1964 U.S. Supreme Court choice in Davis v. Mann and the 1965 Virginia Supreme Court selection in Wilkins v. Davis respectively.[398]

Enforcement of federal civil rights law surpassed in the mid-Sixties helped overturn the kingdom’s Jim Crow legal guidelines that successfully disfranchised African Americans, who have seeing that turn out to be the maximum dependable bloc of Democratic electorate.[399] The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made Virginia certainly one of 9 states that were required to acquire federal popularity of modifications to vote casting legal guidelines, until the machine for which includes states changed into struck down in 2013.[400] A strict photograph identity requirement, added beneath Governor Bob McDonnell in 2014, become repealed in 2020,[401] and the Voting Rights Act of Virginia turned into passed in 2021, requiring preclearance from the country Attorney General for neighborhood election adjustments that would bring about disenfranchisement, consisting of remaining or shifting polling web sites.[402] Though many Jim Crow provisions have been eliminated in Virginia’s 1971 constitution, an entire life ban on balloting for legal convictions changed into unchanged, and with the aid of 2016, up to 20 percentage of African Americans in Virginia had been disenfranchised due to prior felonies.[403] That yr, Governor Terry McAuliffe ended the lifetime ban and for my part restored voting rights to over 200,000 ex-felons.[396]

Regional differences additionally play a big element in Virginia politics. While urban and increasing suburban areas, consisting of tons of Northern Virginia, form the modern Democratic Party base, rural southern and western areas moved to guide the Republican Party in reaction to its “southern strategy” beginning around 1970.[404][405] Rural Democratic assist has nevertheless persisted in union-encouraged Roanoke in Southwest Virginia, college towns including Charlottesville and Blacksburg, and the southeastern Black Belt Region.[406] Educational attainment and gender have emerge as robust signs of political alignment, with the bulk of women in Virginia helping Democratic presidential candidates for the reason that 1980.[407] International immigration and domestic migration into Virginia have additionally improved the percentage of eligible citizens born out of doors the country from 44% in 1980 to 55% in 2019.[408]

State elections

State elections in Virginia arise in strange-numbered years, with govt branch elections occurring in years following U.S. presidential elections and Senate elections happening in the years prior to presidential elections, as each have 4-yr terms. House of Delegates elections take place concurrent with every of these elections as members have two-12 months phrases. National politics often play a position in kingdom election results, and Virginia has elected governors of the birthday party opposite the U.S. president in ten of the closing eleven contests, with best Terry McAuliffe beating the trend.[409][410] McAuliffe, a Democrat, became elected in 2013 throughout Barack Obama’s 2d presidential term.[411] Republicans at that time held a supermajority of seats within the House of Delegates, which they’d first gained in the 2011 nation elections,[412] and a one-vote majority the country senate, both of which they maintained in the 2015 elections.[413] The 2011 and 2015 elections additionally had the lowest voter turnout in latest records, with simply 28.6% and 29.1% of registered electorate participating respectively.[414]

The 2017 country elections ended in Democrats preserving the 3 government workplaces, with outgoing lieutenant governor Ralph Northam prevailing the governorship, Justin Fairfax elected lieutenant governor, and Mark Herring continuing as lawyer trendy. In concurrent House of Delegates elections, Democrats flipped fifteen of the Republicans’ previous 16-seat majority.[415] Control of the House got here right down to a tied election inside the 94th district, which the Republican won by way of a drawing of plenty, giving his birthday party a narrow fifty one–49 majority in the 2018–19 legislative classes.[416] At this time, Virginia turned into ranked as having the most gerrymandered nation legislature, as Republicans managed the House with simplest forty four.5% of the overall vote.[417] In 2019, federal courts observed that eleven House district strains, together with the 94th, had been unconstitutionally interested in discriminate in opposition to African Americans.[418][419] Adjusted districts have been used in the 2019 elections, whilst Democrats won complete manage of the General Assembly, notwithstanding a political disaster in advance that yr.[420][421] Voters in 2020 then exceeded a referendum to provide control of drawing both kingdom and congressional districts to a commission of eight citizens and four legislators from every of the 2 primary parties, as opposed to the legislature.[422]

Federal elections

Though Virginia changed into taken into consideration a “swing state” in the 2008 presidential election,[423] Virginia’s 13 electoral votes had been carried in that election and the three considering that via Democratic candidates, including Joe Biden, who won by means of over ten percentage in 2020, suggesting the nation 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, consisting of ten in a row from 1968 to 2004, however hasn’t voted for a Republican candidate statewide seeing that 2009.[424] Virginia presently holds its presidential primary election on Super Tuesday, the equal day as thirteen other states, with the most recent held on March 3, 2020.[425]

Virginia’sU.S. Senators are in training 1 and 2. In elegance 1, Republican incumbent George Allen misplaced races in 2006 to Democratic newcomer Jim Webb, and again in 2012 to Webb’s successor, former Governor Tim Kaine.[426] In 2008, Democrats additionally received the elegance 2 seat whilst former Governor Mark Warner turned into elected to update retiring Republican John Warner.[427] Virginia has had 11 U.S. House of Representatives seats on account that 1993, and manage of the bulk has flipped 4 instances given that then, often as part of “wave elections”. In the 2010 mid-time period elections, the first underneath President Obama, Republicans flipped the 2d and fifth seats from the Democrats, who had flipped each within the preceding election, as well as the ninth. In the 2018 mid-terms, the first beneath President Trump, Democrats took again the second, as well as the seventh and 10th, giving them currently seven seats to the Republicans’ 4.[428]

Sports

Virginia is the most populous U.S. state with out a prime expert sports league franchise. The motives for this consist of the shortage of any dominant metropolis or marketplace within the state, a reluctance to publicly finance stadiums, and the proximity of groups in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Charlotte, and Raleigh.[430] A proposed area in Virginia Beach designed for an NBA franchise became the brand new unsuccessful sports initiative whilst the city council there ended aid in 2017.[431] Virginia Beach had formerly been considered for an NBA franchise in 1987, which in the long run have become the Charlotte Hornets.[432] The Virginia Squires of the ABA started in Norfolk in 1970, but lost momentum after buying and selling “Dr. J” Julius Erving and folded just one month earlier than the ABA–NBA merger in 1976.[433]

Five minor league baseball and two mid-stage hockey groups play in Virginia. Norfolk is host to 2: The Triple-A Norfolk Tides and the ECHL’s Norfolk Admirals. The Double-A Richmond Flying Squirrels started out gambling at The Diamond in 2010,[434] whilst the Fredericksburg Nationals, Lynchburg Hillcats, and Salem Red Sox play inside the Low-A East league.[435] Loudoun United FC, the reserve team of D.C. United, debuted within the USL Championship in 2019,[436] while the Richmond Kickers of the USL League One have operated because 1993 and are the handiest group of their league to win each the league championship and the U.S. Open Cup inside the same year.[437] The Washington Football Team also have their headquarters in Ashburn and their education facility in Richmond,[438] and the Washington Capitals exercise at MedStar Capitals Iceplex in Ballston.

Virginia has many expert quality golf guides including Kingsmill Resort outdoor Williamsburg, which hosts an LPGA Tour event in May, and the Country Club of Virginia out of doors Richmond, which hosts a charity classic on the guys’s senior tour in October. NASCAR currently schedules Cup Series races on two tracks in Virginia: Martinsville Speedway and Richmond Raceway. Virginia natives presently competing in the collection consist of Denny Hamlin and Elliott Sadler.[439] Hampton Roads has produced numerous Olympic gold medalists, inclusive of Gabby Douglas, the primary African American to win gymnastics person all-around gold,[440] and LaShawn Merritt and Francena McCorory, who helped the U.S. men’s and ladies’s 4 × 400 metres relay groups respectively to gold at the 2016 Rio video games.[441] Major lengthy-distance races inside the kingdom encompass the Richmond Marathon, the Blue Ridge Marathon on the Parkway, and the Monument Avenue 10K.

College sports

In the absence of expert sports, several of Virginia’s collegiate sports activities packages have attracted sturdy followings, with a 2015 poll showing that 34% of Virginians were lovers of the Virginia Cavaliers and 28% had been enthusiasts of the rival Virginia Tech Hokies, making each extra popular than the surveyed nearby expert teams.[442] The men’s and ladies’s university basketball applications of the Cavaliers, VCU Rams, and Old Dominion Monarchs have combined for sixty three everyday season convention championships and forty eight conference event championships among them as of 2021. The Hokies football crew sustained a 27-yr bowl streak between 1993 and 2019; James Madison Dukes soccer gained FCS NCAA Championships in both 2004 and 2016.[443] The overall UVA guys’s athletics applications won the countrywide Capital One Cup in both 2015 and 2019, and lead the Atlantic Coast Conference in NCAA championships.[444][445]

Fourteen universities in overall compete in NCAA Division I, with a couple of programs every within the Atlantic Coast Conference, Atlantic 10 Conference, Big South Conference, and Colonial Athletic Association. Three historically Black faculties compete within the Division II Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association, and two others (Hampton and Norfolk State) compete in Division I. Several smaller faculties 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, guys’s basketball, volleyball, and softball in Salem.[446] Virginia does now not allow country appropriated price range for use for both operational or capital costs for intercollegiate athletics.[447]

High faculty sports

Virginia is also domestic to numerous of the kingdom’s top high school basketball packages, together with Paul VI Catholic High School and Oak Hill Academy, the latter of which has received nine national championships.[448] In the 2018–2019 college 12 months, 174,224 high school students participated in fourteen ladies sports and thirteen boys sports controlled by means of the Virginia High School League, with the maximum popular sports activities being soccer, out of doors song and move united states, football, basketball, baseball and softball, and volleyball.[449] Youth football leagues outside of the high school gadget also are popular within the nation, and 18 teams from Virginia have won country wide championships, seventh-most among U.S. states.[450] Access to youth football in Virginia but has been discovered to be surprisingly correlated to race and median family earnings, with opportunities almost completely disappearing in areas where the non-white population handed 90%, specially inside the Southwest and Southside areas of the Commonwealth.[451]

State symbols

The nation nickname is its oldest image, even though it has never been made authentic by regulation. Virginia turned into given the name “Dominion” with the aid of King Charles II of England on the time of The Restoration, due to the fact Virginia changed into domestic to many loyalists all through the English Civil War, and the present moniker, “Old Dominion” is a connection with that identify. Charles’s supporters have been known as Cavaliers, and “The Cavalier State” nickname turned into popularized after the American Civil War to romanticize the antebellum length. Sports teams from the University of Virginia are referred to as the Cavaliers. The other nickname, “Mother of Presidents”, is also historical, as eight Virginians have served as President of the US, which includes 4 of the primary five.[1]

The nation’s motto, Sic Semper Tyrannis, translates from Latin as “Thus Always to Tyrants”, and is used on the nation seal, that is then used at the flag. While the seal was designed in 1776, and the flag became first used in the 1830s, both had been made reputable in 1930.[454] The majority of the alternative symbols have been made official within the past due 20th century.[455] The Virginia reel is the various square dances labeled as the state dance.[456] In 1940, Virginia made “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny” the state song, but it was retired in 1997 due to its references to slavery. In March 2015, Virginia named “Our Great Virginia”, which uses the track of “Oh Shenandoah”, because the conventional nation track and “Sweet Virginia Breeze” as the popular kingdom music.[457]

See alsoIndex of Virginia-associated articles

Outline of Virginia

References^ a b c “Factpack” (PDF). Virginia General Assembly. January eleven, 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 28, 2008. Retrieved October 14, 2008.

^ a b Burnham & Burnham 2018, pp. 277

^ a b Bureau, US Census (April 26, 2021). “2020 Census Apportionment Results”. The United States Census Bureau. Retrieved April 27, 2021.

^ “Median Annual Household Income”. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. 2017. Retrieved March 16, 2019.

^ “Mid-Atlantic Home : Mid–Atlantic Information Office : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics”. www.bls.gov. Archived from the unique on April 8, 2019. Retrieved July 27, 2017.

^ “United States Regions”. National Geographic Society. January 3, 2012. Archived from the unique on March 27, 2019. Retrieved April 29, 2017.

^ a b Jacobs, Jack (July 30, 2019). “General Assembly commemorates origins of democracy in America”. The Virginia Gazette. Retrieved May 7, 2020.

^ “2000 Census of Population and Housing” (PDF). United States Census Bureau. April 2004. p. seventy one. Archived (PDF) from the authentic on December three, 2017. Retrieved November three, 2009.

^ “Supreme Court Rules for Virginia in Potomac Conflict”. The Sea Grant Law Center. University of Mississippi. 2003. Archived from the authentic on June 10, 2010. Retrieved November 24, 2007.

^ Van Zandt 1976, pp. 92–ninety five.

^ Mathews, Dalena; Sorrell, Robert (October 6, 2018). “Pieces of the Past: Supreme Court looked at controversy over Bristol border location”. Bristol Herald Courier. Archived from the authentic on October 6, 2018. Retrieved September 16, 2019.

^ “Geological Formation”. National Park Service. August eight, 2018. Retrieved July thirteen, 2021.

^ Kormann, Carolyn (June 8, 2018). “Tangier, the Sinking Island inside the Chesapeake”. The New Yorker. Retrieved May 22, 2020.

^ White, Amy Brecount (April 16, 2020). “Shifting sands: Virginia’s barrier islands are constantly at the circulate”. Roadtrippers. Retrieved May 22, 2020.

^ Noll, David (October 29, 2007). “Great Falls National Park on the Potomac River”. Earth Science Picture of the Day. Retrieved May 28, 2021.

^ “Virginia’s Agricultural Resources”. Natural Resource Education Guide. Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. January 21, 2008. Archived from the original on October 20, 2008. Retrieved February 8, 2008.

^ “Physiographic Regions of Virginia”. The Geology of Virginia. College of William and Mary. July 2015. Retrieved June 5, 2020.

^ Frost, Peter (August 23, 2011). “Virginia earthquake biggest recorded in commonwealth”. The Daily Press. Retrieved May 22, 2020.

^ Choi, Charles Q. (August 23, 2012). “2011 Virginia earthquake felt through 0.33 of U.S.” CBS News. Retrieved May 8, 2020.

^ Mayell, Hillary (November thirteen, 2001). “Chesapeake Bay Crater Offers Clues to Ancient Cataclysm”. National Geographic Society. Archived from the unique on March three, 2016. Retrieved March 11, 2016.

^ Harper, Scott (April eight, 2009). “Lake Drummond’s Name and Origin Still a Mystery to Some”. The Virginian-Pilot Daily Press. Retrieved May 27, 2021.

^ Leatherman, Dale (October 12, 2017). “6 Spectacular Caves You’ll Want to Explore in the Shenandoah”. Washingtonian Magazine. Retrieved June five, 2020.

^ Kelly, James C.; Rasmussen, William Meade Stith (2000). The Virginia Landscape: A Cultural History. Charlottesville: Howell Press. p. 12. ISBN 978-1-57427-a hundred and ten-2. Retrieved May 12, 2021.

^ “Coal” (PDF). Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals, and Energy. July 31, 2008. Archived (PDF) from the original on January three, 2015. Retrieved February 26, 2014.

^ “Comparison of Annually Reported Tonnage Data” (XLS). Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy. April 7, 2021. Retrieved May 12, 2021.

^ Chung, Andrew (June 17, 2019). “Virginia ban on uranium mining upheld by using U.S. Supreme Court”. Reuters. Retrieved May 27, 2021.

^ a b U.S. Climate Divisional Dataset (May 2021). “Climate at a Glance”. NOAA National Centers for Environmental records. Retrieved June 23, 2020.

^ a b c d e f g Burnham & Burnham 2018, pp. xvii–xxi, 64

^ Dresbach, Jim (April 11, 2019). “Severe climate awareness for spring, summer time”. Pentagram. Retrieved May 29, 2020.

^ “Annual twister drill in Virginia will be held March 17”. WSET-TV. Associated Press. February 12, 2020. Retrieved May 29, 2020.

^ “Annual Severe Weather Report Summary”. NOAA / National Weather Service. January 7, 2021. Retrieved March 29, 2021.

^ Halverson, Jeff (August 19, 2019). “Virginia’s deadliest herbal catastrophe spread out 50 years in the past from Hurricane Camille”. The Washington Post. Retrieved May 29, 2020.

^ Halverson, Jeff (February 7, 2018). “Your primer to know-how Mid-Atlantic cold air damming and ‘the wedge'”. The Washington Post. Retrieved May 29, 2020.

^ Leayman, Emily (January 22, 2020). “Snowiest Day On Record: The Day Fairfax Co. Saw 25.5 Inches Fall”. Patch. Retrieved May 29, 2020.

^ Boyer, John (March 23, 2019). “We made it to the end of Richmond’s snow season. Here’s how our numbers stacked up”. The Richmond Times-Dispatch. Retrieved May 29, 2020.

^ Watts, Brent (July 6, 2016). “Virginia summers getting more warm and humid”. WDBJ-TV. Retrieved May 29, 2020.

^ Vogelsong, Sarah (January 15, 2020). “In Virginia and U.S., urban warmth islands and beyond redlining practices may be related, take a look at reveals”. The Virginia Mercury. Retrieved May 29, 2020.

^ Plumer, Brad; Popovich, Nadja (August 24, 2020). “How Decades of Racist Housing Policy Left Neighborhoods Sweltering”. The New York Times. Retrieved August 25, 2020.

^ “Report Card: Virginia”. State of the Air: 2020. American Lung Association. April 21, 2021. Retrieved May 12, 2021.

^ a b c d e f g h “Virginia”. America’s Health Rankings. United Health Foundation. November 30, 2020. Retrieved March 29, 2021.

^ Myatt, Kevin (August 27, 2019). “Weather Journal: You virtually can see more certainly on warm summer days than you used to”. The Roanoke Star. Retrieved May 29, 2020.

^ McGowan, Elizabeth (December 16, 2020). “Report: Dominion Energy ought to start planning now for coal plant transition”. Energy News Network. Retrieved April 2, 2021.

^ O’Keefe, Jimmy (October four, 2019). “Virginia to broaden four new solar electricity projects”. Associated Press. Archived from the unique on November 22, 2019. Retrieved November 22, 2019.

^ a b “State of the Forest Annual Report on Virginia’s Forests 2019” (PDF). Virginia Department of Forestry. December 2019. Retrieved May 8, 2020.

^ Ward, Justin (August 17, 2016). “Gyspy Moths on huge, damaging direction in Southwest Virginia”. WDBJ-TV. Retrieved May 14, 2020.

^ Quine, Katie (November 2, 2015). “Why Are the Blue Ridge Mountains Blue?”. Our State. Retrieved May 30, 2021.

^ a b “Virginia’s Protected Lands”. Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation. 2021. Retrieved May 29, 2021.

^ “Virginia”. National Park Service. Retrieved July 4, 2020.

^ “The George Washington and Jefferson National Forests”. United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service. 2021. Retrieved May 29, 2021.

^ “Fun Facts”. Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation. May 17, 2021. Retrieved May 27, 2021.

^ “Virginia Natural Area Preserves”. Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation. November 20, 2020. Retrieved May 27, 2021.

^ Randall Brown (January 12, 2018). “That’s the Breaks: Documentary chronicles sizable natural region on Virginia-Kentucky border”. Knoxville News Sentinel.

^ “About the Virginia Department of Forestry”. 2021. Retrieved May 29, 2021.

^ Perrotte, Ken (May 23, 2019). “Virginia’s Newest Wildlife Management Areas are Shining Examples of How/Where to Buy”. Outdoors Rambler. Retrieved May 27, 2021.

^ “Enactment of Historic Legislation is Major Victory for Chesapeake Bay”. Chesapeake Bay Foundation (Press release). October 30, 2020. Retrieved May 29, 2021.

^ Gildart, Robert C.; Gildart, Jane (2016). Hiking Shenandoah National Park (five ed.). Guilford, Connecticut: Falcon Guides. p. three. ISBN 978-1-4930-1685-3.

^ Clarkson, Tee (March 3, 2018). “Clarkson: Deer populations abound, however quantity of hunters continues to decline”. The Richmond Times-Dispatch. Retrieved April 2, 2020.

^ a b c Pagels, John F. (2013). “Virginia Master Naturalist Basic Training Course” (PDF). Virginia Tech. Retrieved May 28, 2021.

^ “American Black Bear”. Shenandoah National Park. August 21, 2020. Retrieved May 31, 2021.

^ “Wildlife Information”. Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources. June 2, 2016. Retrieved July 4, 2020.

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