Virginia

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Coordinates: 38°00′N 79°00′W / 38.0°N 79.0°W / 38.0; -79.0 (Commonwealth of Virginia)
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This article is about the U.S. state. For other uses, see Virginia (disambiguation).
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Virginia
State
Commonwealth of Virginia
Senate
 • Lower houseHouse of Delegates
JudiciarySupreme Court of Virginia
U.S. senators
Mount Rogers[2])
5,729 ft (1,746 m)
Lowest elevation
(Atlantic Ocean)
0 ft (0 m)
Population
 (2023)
 • Total8,715,698[3]
 • Rank12th
 • Density219.3/sq mi (84.7/km2)
  • Rank14th
 • Median household income
$80,615
 • Income rank
10th
DemonymVirginian
Language
 • Official languageEnglish
 • Spoken language
  • English 86%
  • Spanish 6%
  • Other 8%
EDT)
USPS abbreviation
VA
ISO 3166 codeUS-VA
Traditional abbreviationVa.
Latitude36° 32′ N to 39° 28′ N
Longitude75° 15′ W to 83° 41′ W
Websitevirginia.gov

Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia,[a] is a state in the Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The state's capital is Richmond and its most populous city is Virginia Beach, though its most populous subdivision is Fairfax County, part of Northern Virginia, where slightly over a third of Virginia's population of 8.72 million live as of 2023.

The Blue Ridge Mountains cross the western and southwestern parts of the state. The state's central region lies predominantly in the Piedmont. Eastern Virginia is part of the Atlantic Plain, and the Middle Peninsula forms the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. The fertile Shenandoah Valley fosters the state's most productive agricultural counties, while the economy in Northern Virginia is driven by technology companies and U.S. federal government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Defense and Central Intelligence Agency. Hampton Roads is also the site of the region's main seaport and Naval Station Norfolk, the world's largest naval base.

Virginia's history begins with

Confederacy, but many northwestern counties remained loyal to the Union, which led to the separation of West Virginia
in 1863.

Although the state was under

Senate and a 100-member House of Delegates
. Unlike other states, cities and counties in Virginia function as equals, but the state government manages most local roads inside each. It is the only state where governors are prohibited from serving consecutive terms.

History

Main article: History of Virginia

Earliest inhabitants

Main article: Native American tribes in Virginia
A simple drawing of a young dark-haired Native American woman speaking to two men in armor from the early 1600s. Several Native Americans look on from the right.
The story of Pocahontas was simplified and romanticized by later artists and authors, including Smith himself, and promoted by her descendants, some of whom married into elite colonial families.[4]

Nomadic hunters are

Nottoway and Meherrin to the north and south, and the Tutelo, who spoke Siouan, to the west.[7]

In response to threats from these other groups to their trade network, thirty or so

Old World diseases during that century,[9] disrupting their oral traditions and complicating research into earlier periods.[10] Additionally, many primary sources, including those that mention Powhatan's daughter, Pocahontas, were created by Europeans, who may have held biases or misunderstood native social structures and customs.[4][11]

Colony

Main article: Colony of Virginia

Several European expeditions, including a

King James I issued a charter for a new colony to the London Company. The group financed an expedition under Christopher Newport that crossed the Atlantic and established a settlement named Jamestown in May 1607.[18]

Though more settlers soon joined, many were ill-prepared for the dangers of the new settlement. As the colony's president,

indentured servants.[22] Enslaved Africans were first sold in Virginia in 1619. Though other Africans arrived under the rules of indentured servitude, and could be freed after four to seven years, the basis for lifelong slavery was developed in legal cases like those of John Punch in 1640 and John Casor in 1655.[23] Laws passed in Jamestown defined slavery as race-based in 1661, as inherited maternally in 1662, and as enforceable by death in 1669.[24]

A three-story red brick colonial-style hall and its left and right wings during summer.
In 1699, after the statehouse in Jamestown was destroyed by fire, the Colony of Virginia's capitol was moved to Williamsburg, where the College of William & Mary was founded six years earlier.[25]

From the colony's start, residents agitated for greater local control, and in 1619, certain male colonists began electing representatives to an assembly, later called the House of Burgesses, that negotiated issues with the governing council appointed by the London Company.[26] Unhappy with this arrangement, the monarchy revoked the company's charter and began directly naming governors and Council members in 1624. In 1635, colonists arrested a governor who ignored the assembly and sent him back to England against his will.[27] William Berkeley was named governor in 1642, just as the turmoil of the English Civil War and Interregnum permitted the colony greater autonomy.[28] As supporter of the king, Berkeley welcomed other so-called Cavaliers who fled to Virginia. He surrendered to Parliamentarians in 1652, but after the 1660 Restoration made him governor again, he blocked assembly elections and exacerbated the class divide by disenfranchising and restricting the movement of indentured servants, who made up around eighty percent of the colony's workforce.[29] On the colony's frontier, Piedmont tribes like the Tutelo and Doeg were being squeezed by Seneca raiders from the north, leading to more confrontations with colonists. In 1676, several hundred working-class followers of Nathaniel Bacon, upset by Berkeley's refusal to retaliate against the tribes, marched to Jamestown and burned it.[30]

Bacon's Rebellion forced the signing of Bacon's Laws, which restored some of the colony's rights and sanctioned both attacks on native tribes and the enslavement of their men and women.[31] The Treaty of 1677 further reduced the independence of the tribes that signed it, and aided the colony's assimilation of their land in the years that followed.[32][33] Colonists in the 1700s were pushing westward into this area held by the Seneca and their larger Iroquois Nation, and in 1748, a group of wealthy speculators, backed by the British monarchy, formed the Ohio Company to start English settlement and trade in the Ohio Country west of the Appalachian Mountains.[34] The Kingdom of France, which claimed this area as part of their colony of New France, viewed this as a threat, and in 1754 the French and Indian War engulfed England, France, the Iroquois, and other allied tribes on both sides. A militia from several British colonies, called the Virginia Regiment, was led by 21-year-old Major George Washington, himself one of the investors in the Ohio Company.[35]

Statehood

See also: Virginia in the American Revolution
Upper-class middle-aged man dressed in a bright red cloak speaks before an assembly of other angry men. The subject's right hand is raise high in gesture toward the balcony.
In 1765, Patrick Henry led a protest of the unpopular Stamp Act in the House of Burgesses, later depicted in this portrait by Peter F. Rothermel.

In the decade following the

coordinate their actions with other colonies in 1773 and sent delegates to the Continental Congress the following year.[37] After the House of Burgesses was dissolved in 1774 by the royal governor, Virginia's revolutionary leaders continued to govern via the Virginia Conventions. On May 15, 1776, the Convention declared Virginia's independence from the British Empire and adopted George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights, which was then included in a new constitution that designated Virginia as a commonwealth, using a translation of the Latin term res publica.[38] Another Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, drew upon Mason's work in drafting the national Declaration of Independence.[39]

After the

Comte de Rochambeau quickly converged there and defeated Cornwallis in the siege of Yorktown.[43] His surrender on October 19, 1781, led to peace negotiations in Paris and secured the independence of the colonies.[44]

Virginians were instrumental in the new country's early years and in writing the

three-fifths compromise ensured that Virginia, with its large number of slaves, initially had the largest bloc in the House of Representatives. Together with the Virginia dynasty of presidents, this gave the Commonwealth national importance. In 1790, Virginia and Maryland ceded territory to form the new national capital, which moved from Philadelphia to the District of Columbia a decade later, in 1800. In 1846, the Virginian area of the new capital was retroceded.[45] Virginia is called the "Mother of States" because of its role in being carved into states such as Kentucky, which became the fifteenth state in 1792, and for the numbers of American pioneers born in Virginia.[46]

Civil War

Main article: Virginia in the American Civil War
A family of eight women and children sit on a bench behind a cylindrical metal heater, while one adult male sits on his own to the right.
Eyre Crowe's 1853 portrait, Slaves Waiting for Sale: Richmond, Virginia, which he completed after visiting Richmond's slave markets, where thousands were sold annually[47]

Between 1790 and 1860, the number of

Gabriel Prosser in 1800, George Boxley in 1815, and Nat Turner in 1831, however, marked the growing resistance to the system of slavery. Afraid of further uprisings, Virginia's government in the 1830s encouraged free Blacks to migrate to Liberia.[50]

On October 16, 1859, abolitionist

raid on an armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in an attempt to start a slave revolt across the southern states. The polarized national response to his raid, capture, trial, and execution in Charles Town that December marked a tipping point for many who believed the end of slavery would need to be achieved by force.[54] Abraham Lincoln's 1860 election further convinced many southern supporters of slavery that his opposition to its expansion would ultimately mean the end of slavery across the country. In South Carolina, the first state to secede to preserve the institution of slavery, a regiment loyal to the newly formed Confederate States of America seized Fort Sumter on April 14, 1861, prompting President Lincoln to call for a federal army of 75,000 men from state militias the next day.[55]

A color drawing of a city skyline in flames as a steady stream of people on horses or in horse-drawn carriages cross a long bridge over a river.
The Confederacy used Richmond as their capital from May 1861 till April 1865, when they abandoned the city and set fire to its downtown.

In Virginia,

Union and led to the separation of West Virginia as a new state.[56]

The armies of the Union and Confederacy first met on July 21, 1861, in Battle of Bull Run near Manassas, Virginia, where a bloody Confederate victory established that the war would not be easily decided. Union General George B. McClellan organized the Army of the Potomac, which landed on the Virginia Peninsula in March 1862 and reached the outskirts of Richmond that June. With Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston wounded in fighting outside the city, command of his Army of Northern Virginia fell to Robert E. Lee. Over the next month, Lee drove the Union army back, and starting that September led the first of several invasions into Union territory. During the next three years of war, more battles were fought in Virginia than anywhere else, including the battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania, and the concluding Battle of Appomattox Court House, where Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865.[57] After the capture of Richmond that month, the state capital was briefly moved to Lynchburg,[58] while the Confederate leadership fled to Danville.[59] 32,751 Virginians died in the Civil War.[60]

Reconstruction and Jim Crow

Several World War I ships line a port crowded with warehouses, with a city skyline behind them.
With nearly 800,000 soldiers passing through, Hampton Roads was the second-largest port of embarkation during World War I.[61]

Virginia was formally restored to the United States in 1870, due to the work of the

Reconstruction era, African Americans were able to unite in communities, particularly around Richmond, Danville, and the Tidewater region, and take a greater role in Virginia society, as many achieved some land ownership during the 1870s.[63][64] Virginia adopted a constitution in 1868 which guaranteed political, civil, and voting rights, and provided for free public schools.[65] However, with many railroad lines and other infrastructure investments destroyed during the Civil War, the Commonwealth was deeply in debt, and in the late 1870s redirected money from public schools to pay bondholders. The Readjuster Party formed in 1877 and won legislative power in 1879 by uniting Black and white Virginians behind a shared opposition to debt payments and the perceived plantation elites.[66]

The Readjusters focused on building up schools, like

disenfranchised most African Americans and many poor whites.[70]

New economic forces would meanwhile industrialize the Commonwealth. Virginian

U.S. Navy between 1907 and 1923.[71] During World War I, German submarines like U-151 attacked ships outside the port,[72] which was a major site for transportation of both soldiers and supplies.[61] After the war, a homecoming parade to honor African-American troops returning from service was attacked in July 1919 by the city's police as part of a renewed white-supremacy movement that was known as Red Summer.[73] The shipyard continued building cruisers and aircraft carriers in World War II, and quadrupled its pre-war labor force to 70,000 by 1943. The Radford Arsenal outside Blacksburg also employed 22,000 workers making explosives.[74]

Civil rights to present

A bronze statue of a man riding a horse on a tall pedestal that is covered in colorful graffiti.
Protests in 2020 focused on Confederate monuments in the state.

Protests against underfunded segregated schools started by

Byrd Organization, the Commonwealth prohibited desegregated local schools from receiving state or private funding as part of the Stanley Plan. After schools in many districts began closing in September 1958, state and district courts ruled the plan unconstitutional, and on February 2, 1959, the first Black students integrated schools in Arlington and Norfolk, where they were known as the Norfolk 17.[75] Prince Edward County still refused to integrate and closed their county school system in June 1959. It only reopened in 1964, after the Supreme Court ordered the county's public schools to be, like others in the state, open and integrated, which they finally did that September.[76][77]

Federal passage of the Civil Rights Act in June 1964 and Voting Rights Act in August 1965, and their later enforcement by the Justice Department, helped end racial segregation in Virginia and overturn Jim Crow era state laws.[78] In June 1967, the Supreme Court also struck down the state's ban on interracial marriage with Loving v. Virginia. In 1968, Governor Mills Godwin called a commission to rewrite the state constitution. The new constitution, which banned discrimination and removed articles that now violated federal law, passed in a referendum with 71.8% support and went into effect in June 1971.[79] In 1977, Black members became the majority of Richmond's city council; in 1989, Douglas Wilder became the first African American elected as governor in the United States; and in 1992, Bobby Scott became the first Black congressman from Virginia since 1888.[80][81]

The expansion of federal government offices into Northern Virginia's suburbs during the

September 11, 2001 attacks; 189 people died at the site when a jet passenger plane was flown into the building.[84] Mass shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007 and in Virginia Beach in 2019 led to passage of gun control measures in 2020.[85] Racial injustice and the presence of Confederate monuments in Virginia have also led to large demonstrations, including in August 2017, when a white supremacist drove his car into protesters, killing one, and in June 2020, when protests that were part of the larger Black Lives Matter movement brought about the removal of statues on Monument Avenue in Richmond and elsewhere.[86]

Geography

Main article: Environment of Virginia
A topographic map of Virginia, with text identifying cities and natural features.
Virginia is shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed, and the parallel 36°30′ north.

Virginia is located in the

largest state by area.[89] The Commonwealth is bordered by Maryland and Washington, D.C. to the north and east; by the Atlantic Ocean to the east; by North Carolina to the south; by Tennessee to the southwest; by Kentucky to the west; and by West Virginia to the north and west. Virginia's boundary with Maryland and Washington, D.C. extends to the low-water mark of the south shore of the Potomac River.[90]

Virginia's southern border

U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the state's favor in the case Virginia v. Tennessee.[92][93] One result of this is the division of the city of Bristol between the two states.[94]

Geology and terrain

Main article: Geology of Virginia
Rapids in a wide, rocky river under blue sky with clouds colored purple by the sunset.
Great Falls is on the fall line of the Potomac River, and its rocks date to the late Precambrian.[95]

The Chesapeake Bay separates the contiguous portion of the Commonwealth from the two-county peninsula of Virginia's Eastern Shore. The bay was formed from the drowned river valley of the ancient Susquehanna River.[96] Many of Virginia's rivers flow into the Chesapeake Bay, including the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James, which create three peninsulas in the bay, traditionally referred to as "necks" named Northern Neck, Middle Peninsula, and the Virginia Peninsula from north to south.[97] Sea level rise has eroded the land on Virginia's islands, which include Tangier Island in the bay and Chincoteague, one of 23 barrier islands on the Atlantic coast.[98][99]

The

Mount Rogers at 5,729 feet (1,746 m).[2] The Ridge-and-Valley region is west of the mountains, carbonate rock based, and includes the Massanutten Mountain ridge and the Great Appalachian Valley, which is called the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, named after the river of the same name that flows through it.[102] The Cumberland Plateau and Cumberland Mountains are in the southwest corner of Virginia, south of the Allegheny Plateau. In this region, rivers flow northwest, with a dendritic drainage system, into the Ohio River basin.[103]

The

Northern Florida to Southern Ontario.[105] 35 million years ago, a bolide impacted what is now eastern Virginia. The resulting Chesapeake Bay impact crater may explain what earthquakes and subsidence the region does experience.[106] A meteor impact is also theorized as the source of Lake Drummond, the largest of the two natural lakes in the state.[107]

The Commonwealth's carbonate rock is filled with more than 4,000

limestone caves, ten of which are open for tourism, including the popular Luray Caverns and Skyline Caverns.[108] Virginia's iconic Natural Bridge is also the remaining roof of a collapsed limestone cave.[109] Coal mining takes place in the three mountainous regions at 45 distinct coal beds near Mesozoic basins.[110] More than 72 million tons of other non-fuel resources, such as slate, kyanite, sand, or gravel, were also mined in Virginia in 2020.[111] The largest known deposits of uranium in the U.S. are under Coles Hill, Virginia. Despite a challenge that reached the U.S. Supreme Court twice, the state has banned its mining since 1982 due to environmental and public health concerns.[112]

Climate

Main article: Climate of Virginia
See also: Climate change in Virginia
Virginia state-wide averages 1895–2023
Climate chart (explanation)
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█ Average max. and min. temperatures in °F
█ Precipitation totals in inches
Source: U.S. Climate Divisional Dataset
Metric conversion
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Virginia has a humid subtropical climate that transitions to humid continental west of the Blue Ridge Mountains.[113] Seasonal extremes vary from average lows of 25 °F (−4 °C) in January to average highs of 86 °F (30 °C) in July.[114] The Atlantic Ocean and Gulf Stream have a strong effect on eastern and southeastern coastal areas of the Commonwealth, making the climate there warmer but also more constant. Most of Virginia's recorded extremes in temperature and precipitation have occurred in the Blue Ridge Mountains and areas west.[115] Virginia receives an average of 43.47 inches (110 cm) of precipitation annually,[114] with the Shenandoah Valley being the state's driest region due to the mountains on either side.[115]

Virginia has around 35–45 days with thunderstorms annually, and storms are common in the late afternoon and evenings between April and September.

Hurricanes and tropical storms can occur from August to October, and though they typically impact coastal regions, the deadliest natural disaster in Virginia was Hurricane Camille, which killed over 150 people mainly in inland Nelson County in 1969.[115][119] Between December and March, cold-air damming caused by the Appalachian Mountains can lead to significant snowfalls across the state, such as the January 2016 blizzard, which created the state's highest recorded one-day snowfall of 36.6 inches (93 cm) near Bluemont.[120][121] On average, cities in Virginia can receive between 5.8–12.3 inches (15–31 cm) of snow annually, but recent winters have seen below-average snowfalls, and much of Virginia failed to register any measurable snow during 2022–2023 winter season.[122][123]

Part of this is due to climate change in Virginia, which is leading to higher temperatures year-round as well as more heavy rain and flooding events.[124] Urban heat islands can be found in many Virginia cities and suburbs, particularly in neighborhoods linked to historic redlining.[125][126] Fairfax County had the most code orange days in 2022 for high ozone pollution in the air, with five, followed by Arlington with four.[127] The closure and conversion of coal power plants in Virginia and the Ohio Valley region has reduced haze in the mountains, which peaked in 1998.[128] Exposure of particulate matter in Virginia's air has been cut in half from 13.5 micrograms per cubic meter in 2003, when coal provided half of Virginia's electricity, to 6.6 in 2023,[129] when coal provided just 3.3%, less than renewables like solar power and biomass.[130][131] Current plans call for 30% of the Commonwealth's electricity to be renewable by 2030 and for all to be carbon-free by 2050.[132]

Ecosystem

See also: List of endangered species in Virginia
A red-brown colored deer with antlers stands in a meadow with high grasses.
Up to 7,000 white-tailed deer, also known as Virginia deer, live in Shenandoah National Park.[133]

Forests cover 62% of Virginia as of 2021, of which 80% is considered

state flag, are also common.[137] The Thompson Wildlife Area in Fauquier is known for having one of the largest populations of trillium wildflowers in all of North America.[115]

bottlenose dolphins being the most frequent aquatic mammals.[139]

A small screech owl is held by a woman as a group of five watch.
Visitors meet a screech owl rehabilitating at the Wildlife Center of Virginia, a hospital for native wild animals.

Audubon recognizes 21 Important Bird Areas in the state.[146] Peregrine falcons, whose numbers dramatically declined due to DDT pesticide poisoning in the middle of the 20th century, are the focus of conservation efforts in the state and a reintroduction program in Shenandoah National Park.[147]

Virginia has 226 species of

northern watersnake is the most common of the 32 snake species.[154]

Protected lands

See also: List of Virginia state parks
Five mountain ridges in shades of dark blue below an orange and yellow sunset.
Oak trees produce a haze of isoprene, which helps give the Blue Ridge Mountains their signature color.[155]

As of 2019, roughly 16.2% of land in the Commonwealth is protected by federal, state, and local governments and non-profits.[156] Federal lands account for the majority, with thirty National Park Service units in the state, such as Great Falls Park and the Appalachian Trail, and one national park, Shenandoah.[157] Shenandoah was established in 1935 and encompasses the scenic Skyline Drive. Almost forty percent of the park's total 199,173 acres (806 km2) area has been designated as wilderness under the National Wilderness Preservation System.[158] The U.S. Forest Service administers the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, which cover more than 1.6 million acres (6,500 km2) within Virginia's mountains, and continue into West Virginia and Kentucky.[159] The Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge also extends into North Carolina, as does the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge, which marks the beginning of the Outer Banks.[160]

State agencies control about one-third of protected land in the state,[156] and the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation manages over 75,900 acres (307.2 km2) in forty Virginia state parks and 59,222 acres (239.7 km2) in 65 Natural Area Preserves, plus three undeveloped parks.[161][162] Breaks Interstate Park crosses the Kentucky border and is one of only two inter-state parks in the United States.[163] Sustainable logging is allowed in 26 state forests managed by the Virginia Department of Forestry totaling 71,972 acres (291.3 km2),[164] as is hunting in 44 Wildlife Management Areas run by the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources covering over 205,000 acres (829.6 km2).[165] The Chesapeake Bay is not a national park, but is protected by both state and federal legislation and the inter-state Chesapeake Bay Program, which conducts restoration on the bay and its watershed.[166]

Cities and towns

See also:
Political subdivisions of Virginia and Virginia statistical areas
Map of Virginia counties colored by population density, ranging from pale yellow, to green, to dark blue.
The population density of Virginia counties and cities as of 2020

Virginia is divided into 95 

Dillon's Rule, which limits the authority of cities and counties to countermand acts expressly allowed by the General Assembly.[170][171] Within counties, there can also be incorporated towns, which do operate their own governments, and unincorporated communities, which do not. There are no further administrative subdivisions
, such as villages or townships.

Over three million people, 35% of Virginians, live in the twenty jurisdictions collectively defined as Northern Virginia, which is part of the larger Washington metropolitan area and the Northeast megalopolis.[172][173] Fairfax County, with more than 1.1 million residents, is Virginia's most populous jurisdiction,[174] and has a major urban business and shopping center in Tysons, Virginia's largest office market.[175] Neighboring Prince William County is Virginia's second most populous county, with a population exceeding 450,000, and is home to Marine Corps Base Quantico, the FBI Academy and Manassas National Battlefield Park. Loudoun County, with its county seat at Leesburg, is the fastest-growing county in the state.[174][176] Arlington County is the smallest self-governing county in the U.S. by land area,[177] and local politicians have proposed reorganizing it as an independent city due to its high density.[170]

Richmond is the capital of Virginia, and its city proper has a population of over 230,000, while its metropolitan area has over 1.3 million.[172] As of 2021, Virginia Beach is the most populous independent city in the Commonwealth, with Chesapeake and Norfolk second and third, respectively.[178] The three are part of the larger Hampton Roads metropolitan area, which has a population over 1.7 million people and is the site of the world's largest naval base, Naval Station Norfolk.[172][179] Suffolk, which includes a portion of the Great Dismal Swamp, is the largest city by area at 429.1 square miles (1,111 km2).[180] In western Virginia, Roanoke city and Montgomery County, part of the Blacksburg–Christiansburg metropolitan area, both have surpassed a population of over 100,000 since 2018.[181]

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

Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Virginia
Historical population
CensusPop.Note%±
1790691,737—
1800807,55716.7%
1810877,6838.7%
1820938,2616.9%
18301,044,05411.3%
18401,025,227−1.8%
18501,119,3489.2%
18601,219,6309.0%
18701,225,1630.5%
18801,512,56523.5%
18901,655,9809.5%
19001,854,18412.0%
19102,061,61211.2%
19202,309,18712.0%
19302,421,8514.9%
19402,677,77310.6%
19503,318,68023.9%
19603,966,94919.5%
19704,648,49417.2%
19805,346,81815.0%
19906,187,35815.7%
20007,078,51514.4%
20108,001,02413.0%
20208,631,3937.9%
2023 (est.)8,715,6981.0%
1790–2020,[182][183] 2023[3]

The

fertility rate in Virginia as of 2020 was 55.8 per 1,000 females between the ages of 15 and 44,[185] and the median age as of 2021 was the same as the national average of 38.8 years old, with the oldest city by median age being James City and the youngest being Lynchburg, home to several universities.[178] The geographic center of population was located northwest of Richmond in Hanover County, as of 2020.[186]

Though still growing naturally as births outnumber deaths, Virginia has had a negative net migration rate since 2013, with 8,995 more people leaving the state than moving to it in 2021. This is largely credited to high home prices in Northern Virginia,[187] which are driving residents there to relocate south, and although Raleigh is their top destination, in-state migration from Northern Virginia to Richmond increased by 36% in 2020 and 2021 compared to the annual average over the previous decade.[188][189] Aside from Virginia, the top birth state for Virginians is New York, having overtaken North Carolina in the 1990s, with the Northeast accounting for the largest number of domestic migrants into the state by region.[190] About twelve percent of residents were born outside the United States as of 2020. El Salvador is the most common foreign country of birth, with India, Mexico, South Korea, the Philippines, and Vietnam as other common birthplaces.[191]

Race and ethnicity

The state's most populous racial group,

American ethnicity" are predominantly of English descent, but have ancestors who have been in North America for so long they choose to identify simply as American.[196][197] The Appalachian mountains and Shenandoah Valley have many settlements that were populated by German and Scotch-Irish immigrants in the 18th and 19th centuries, often following the Great Wagon Road.[198][199] Over ten percent of Virginians have German ancestry as of 2020.[200]

Dozens of adults sit in auditorium rows, many waving small American flags
New citizens attend a naturalization ceremony in Northern Virginia, where 25% of residents are foreign-born, almost twice the overall state average.[191]

The largest minority group in Virginia are Blacks and African Americans, who include about one-fifth of the population.

Igbo ethnic group of what is now southern Nigeria were the largest African group among slaves in Virginia.[201] Blacks in Virginia also have more European ancestry than those in other southern states, and DNA analysis shows many have asymmetrical male and female ancestry contributions from before the Civil War, evidence of European fathers and African or Native American mothers during the time of slavery.[202][203] Though the Black population was reduced by the Great Migration to northern industrial cities in the first half of the 20th century, since 1965 there has been a reverse migration of Blacks returning south.[204] The Commonwealth has the highest number of Black-white interracial marriages in the United States,[205] and 8.2% of Virginians describe themselves as multiracial.[3]

More recent immigration in the late 20th century and early 21st century has resulted in new communities of Hispanics and Asians. As of 2020[update], 10.5% of Virginia's total population describe themselves as

U.S. Navy and armed forces.[209]

Glen Youngkin receiving a ceremonial tribute from representatives of the Mattaponi and Pamunkey tribes, a Thanksgiving tradition since 1677.[210]

Tidewater region.[214]

Largest race by county or city Race and ethnicity (2020) Alone Total
Map of racial plurality in Virginia by county as of the 2020 U.S. census
Legend
Non-Hispanic White
  30–39%
  40–49%
  50–59%
  60–69%
  70–79%
  80–89%
  90–99%
 Black or African American
  40–49%
  50–59%
  60–69%
  70–79%
 Hispanic or Latino
  40–49%
 Non-Hispanic White 58.6% 62.8%
Black or African American 18.3% 20.1%
Hispanic or Latino (of any race) 10.5%
Asian 7.1% 8.6%
American Indian and Alaska Native 0.2% 1.5%
Other 0.6% 1.5%
Largest ancestry by county or city Ancestry (2020 est.) Total

Virginia counties colored either red, blue, yellow, green, or purple based on the populations most common ancestry. The south-east is predominately purple for African American, while the west is mostly red for American. The north has yellow for German, with two small areas green for Irish. Yellow is also found in spots in the west. A strip in the middle is blue for English.
American Community Survey five-year estimate

  Irish or Scotch-Irish
 10.4%
  German
 10.3%
  English
 9.8%
  American
 9.4%
  Subsaharan African
 2.3%

Languages

Recording of a resident of Tangier Island who was born in the late 1800s, showcasing the island's unique accent

According to U.S. Census data as of 2019 on Virginia residents aged five and older, 83.2% (6,683,027) speak

Arabic, both with just over 0.7%, and then Korean and Tagalog, with 0.6% and 0.5% respectively.[215]

English was passed as the Commonwealth's official language by statutes in 1981 and again in 1996, though the status is not mandated by the

Tidewater accent, sometimes described as a subset of the Old Virginia accent, evolved from the language that upper-class English typically spoke in the early Colonial period, while the Appalachian accent has much more influence from the English spoken by Scottish and Irish immigrants from that time.[218][220] The outward stereotypes of Appalachians has, however, lead to some from the region code-switching to a less distinct English accent.[221] The English spoken on Tangier Island in the Chesapeake Bay, preserved by the island's isolation, contains many phrases and euphemisms not found anywhere else and retains elements of Early Modern English.[222][223]

Religion

See also: Religion in early Virginia
Religious groups (2014 est.)
Protestant
 
 58%
Unaffiliated
 
 20%
Catholic
 
 12%
Mormon
 
 2%
Eastern Orthodox
 
 1%
Other faith
 
 6%

Virginia is predominantly

Roman Catholics are the next largest religious group with around twelve percent.[224] The Roman Catholic Diocese of Arlington includes most of Northern Virginia's Catholic churches, while the Diocese of Richmond
covers the rest of the state.

An outdoor auditorium with seated guests lined with neoclassical columns and a closed archway on one side and banners hanging inside the arch.
Since 1927, Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County has hosted an annual nondenominational sunrise service every Easter.[227]

The

Congregational churches, and Episcopalian adherents each comprised less than two percent of the population as of 2014.[224] The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, Southern Virginia, and Southwestern Virginia support the various Episcopal churches
.

In November 2006, fifteen conservative Episcopal churches voted to split from the Diocese of Virginia over the ordination of openly

gay bishops and clergy in other dioceses of the Episcopal Church; these churches continue to claim affiliation with the larger Anglican Communion through other bodies outside the United States. Though Virginia law allows parishioners to determine their church's affiliation, the diocese claimed the secessionist churches' buildings and properties. The resulting property law case, ultimately decided in favor of the mainline diocese, was a test for Episcopal churches nationwide.[228]

Among other religions, adherents of

Muslim mosque community in the country.[230] While the state's Jewish population is small, organized Jewish sites date to 1789 with Congregation Beth Ahabah.[231] Megachurches in the Commonwealth include Thomas Road Baptist Church, Immanuel Bible Church, and McLean Bible Church,[232] and the twenty percent who describe themselves as unaffiliated also include seven percent who say religion is important to them, but may not attend regular services with formal membership.[233] Several Christian universities are also based in the state, including Regent University, Liberty University, and the University of Lynchburg
.

Economy

Main article: Economy of Virginia
See also:
Virginia locations by per capita income
Map of Virginia counties colored by median household income, with ranging from gray, to blue, to darker green.
Counties and cities by median household income between 2015 and 2019

Virginia's economy has diverse sources of income, including local and federal government, military, farming and high-tech. The state's average per capita income in 2022 was $68,211,[234] and the gross domestic product (GDP) was $654.5 billion, both ranking as 13th-highest among U.S. states.[235] The COVID-19 recession caused jobless claims due to soar over 10% in early April 2020,[236] before leaving off around 5% in November 2020 and returning to pre-pandemic levels in 2023.[237] In March 2024, the unemployment rate was 2.9%, which was the 11th-lowest nationwide.[238]

Virginia had a

income inequality than the national average,[242] the state's middle class is also smaller than the majority of states.[243]

Virginia's business environment has been ranked highly by various publications. After two years as number one,

Oxfam America however ranked Virginia in 2023 as only the 28th-best state to work in, with pluses for worker protections from sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination, but negatives for laws on organized labor and the low tipped employee minimum wage of $2.13.[247] Virginia has been an employment-at-will state since 1906 and a "right to work" state since 1947,[248][249] and though state minimum wage increased to $12 in 2023, farm and tipped workers are specifically excluded.[250][247]

Government agencies

Aerial view of the huge five-sided building and its multiple rings. Parking lots and highways stretch away from it.
The U.S. Department of Defense is headquartered in Arlington County at the Pentagon, the world's largest office building.[251]

Government agencies directly employ around 714,100 Virginians as of 2022, almost 17% of all employees in the state.

U.S. Department of Defense at the Pentagon or one of 27 military bases in the state, representing all major branches and covering 270,009 acres (1,092.69 km2).[255] Another 139,000 Virginians work for defense contracting firms,[256] which received $44.8 billion worth of contracts in the 2020 fiscal year.[255] Virginia has the second highest concentration of veterans of any state with 9.7% of the population, as many stay in the state and the Hampton Roads area in particular, which is home to world's largest navy base and only NATO station on U.S. soil.[257][255]

Other large

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in Bailey's Crossroads. Virginia's state government employs over 106,000 public employees, who combined have a median income of $52,401 as of 2018,[258] with the Departments of Transportation and of Education the two largest state departments by expenditure.[259] K–12 teachers in Virginia make an annual average of $59,970, which is thirteen-lowest in the U.S. when adjusted for the state's cost of living as of the 2021–22 school year.[260]

Business

High-rise hotels line the ocean front covered with colorful beach-goers.
Ocean tourism is an important sector of Virginia Beach's economy.

Based on data as of 2020, Virginia is home to 204,131 separate employers plus 644,341

Hilton Worldwide Holdings in McLean.[262]

Virginia has the third highest concentration of technology workers and the fifth highest overall number among U.S. states as of 2020[update], with the 451,268 tech jobs accounting for 11.1% of all jobs in the state and earning a median salary of $98,292.

Tysons Corner areas. Amazon additionally selected Crystal City for its HQ2 in 2018, while Google expanded their Reston
offices in 2019.

Northern Virginia became the world's largest

Simpson index, only 26% of tech employees in Virginia are women, and only 13% are Black or African American.[263]

Tourism in Virginia supported an estimated 185,000 jobs in 2021,[272] making tourism the state's fifth-largest industry. It generated $26 billion in 2018, an increase of 4.4% from the previous year.[273] The state was eighth nationwide in domestic travel spending in 2018, with Arlington County the top tourist destination in the state by domestic spending, followed by Fairfax County, Loudoun County, and Virginia Beach.[274] Virginia also saw 1.1 million international tourists in 2018, a five percent increase from 2017.[275]

Agriculture

Two adult men in green and red baseball caps work with their hands while crouching down in a field of wide green leaves.
Rockingham County in the Shenandoah Valley accounts for twenty percent of Virginia's agricultural sales as of 2017, with the valley as a whole being the state's most productive region.[276]

As of 2021, agriculture occupies 30% of the land in Virginia with 7.7 million acres (12,031 sq mi; 31,161 km2) of farmland. Nearly 54,000 Virginians work on the state's 41,500 farms, which average 186 acres (0.29 sq mi; 0.75 km2). Though agriculture has declined significantly since 1960 when there were twice as many farms, it remains the largest industry in Virginia, providing for over 490,000 jobs.[277] Soybeans were the most profitable single crop in Virginia in 2022[278] although the ongoing trade war with China has led many Virginia farmers to plant cotton instead of soybeans.[279] Other leading agricultural products include corn, cut flower and tobacco, where the state ranks third nationally in the production of the crop.[277][278]

Virginia is the country's third-largest producer of seafood as of 2021, with sea scallops, oysters, Chesapeake blue crabs, menhaden, and hardshell clams as the largest seafood harvests by value, and France, Canada, New Zealand, and Hong Kong as the top export destinations.[280] Commercial fishing supports 18,220 jobs as of 2020, while recreation fishing supports another 5,893.[281] The population of eastern oysters collapsed in the 1980s due to pollution and overharvesting, but has slowly rebounded, and the 2022–2023 season saw the largest harvest in 35 years with around 700,000 US bushels (25,000 kL).[282] A warm winter and a dry summer made the 2023 wine harvest one of the best for vineyards in the Northern Neck and along the Blue Ridge Mountains, which also attract 2.6 million tourists annually.[283][284] Virginia has the seventh-highest number of wineries in the nation, with 388 producing 1.1 million cases a year as of 2024.[285] Cabernet Franc and Chardonnay are the most grown varieties.[286] Breweries in Virginia also produced 460,315 barrels (54,017 kl) of craft beer in 2022, the 15th-most nationally.[287]

Taxes

A map of Virginia colored green to blue based on how much property tax was paid, from $200 to $4,000+.
Counties and cities by median property tax paid in 2019

filing threshold. There are five income brackets, with rates ranging from 2.0% to 5.75% of taxable income.[288][289] The state sales and use tax rate is 4.3%, though there is an additional 1% local tax, for a total of a 5.3% combined sales tax on most purchases. Three regions then have a higher sales tax: 6% in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, and 7% in the Historic Triangle.[290] Unlike the majority of states, Virginia does have a 1% sales tax on groceries.[291] This was lowered from 2.5% in January 2023, when the items covered by this lower rate were also extended to include essential personal hygiene goods.[290][292]

Virginia's property tax is set and collected at the local government level and varies throughout the Commonwealth. Real estate is also taxed at the local level based on one hundred percent of fair market value.[293] As of 2021, the overall median real estate tax rate per $100 of assessed taxable value was $0.96, though for 72 of the 95 counties this number was under $0.80 per $100. Northern Virginia has the highest property taxes in the state, with Manassas Park paying the highest effective tax rate at $1.31 per $100, while Powhatan and Lunenburg counties were tied for the lowest, at $0.30.[294] Of local government tax revenue, about 61% is generated from real property taxes while 24% is from tangible personal property, sales and use, and business license tax. The remaining 15% come from taxes on hotels, restaurant meals, public service corporation property, and consumer utilities.[295]

Culture

Main article: Culture of Virginia
Five women dressed in long colonial style clothing sit on the stairs of tan and beige buildings talking. In front of them is a wooden wheelbarrow full of wicker baskets.
Colonial Virginian culture, language, and style are reenacted in Williamsburg.

Modern Virginian culture has many sources and is part of the culture of the Southern United States.[296] The Smithsonian Institution divides Virginia into nine cultural regions, and in 2007 used their annual Folklife Festival to recognize the substantial contributions of England and Senegal on Virginian culture.[297] Virginia's culture was popularized and spread across America and the South by figures such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Robert E. Lee. Their homes in Virginia represent the birthplace of America and the South.[298]

Besides the general cuisine of the Southern United States, Virginians maintain their own particular traditions. Virginia wine is made in many parts of the Commonwealth.[284] Smithfield ham, sometimes called "Virginia ham", is a type of country ham which is protected by state law and can be produced only in the town of Smithfield.[299] Virginia furniture and architecture are typical of American colonial architecture. Thomas Jefferson and many of the Commonwealth's early leaders favored the Neoclassical architecture style, leading to its use for important state buildings. The Pennsylvania Dutch and their style can also be found in parts of the Commonwealth.[198]

Literature in Virginia often deals with the Commonwealth's extensive and sometimes troubled past. The works of

The Confessions of Nat Turner and Sophie's Choice.[302] Tom Wolfe has occasionally dealt with his southern heritage in bestsellers like I Am Charlotte Simmons.[303] Mount Vernon native Matt Bondurant received critical acclaim for his historic novel The Wettest County in the World about moonshiners in Franklin County during prohibition.[304] Virginia also names a state Poet Laureate.[305]

Fine and performing arts

See also: Music of Virginia
Five male musicians perform on stage in front of a standing audience, behind them a dozen lights project blue lines upward.
The Steel Wheels, an Americana roots folk rock band, plays at Jefferson Theater in Charlottesville in February 2019.

Virginia ranks near the middle of U.S. states in terms of public spending on the arts as of 2021, at just over half of the national average.

Virginia Foundation for the Humanities works to improve the Commonwealth's civic, cultural, and intellectual life.[309]

Theaters and venues in Virginia are found both in the cities and in suburbs. The

Landmark Theater, and Jiffy Lube Live.[313] Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts is located in Vienna and is the only national park intended for use as a performing arts center.[314]

Virginia is known for its tradition in the music genres of

GWAR and Lamb of God.[317] Several members of country music band Old Dominion grew up in the Roanoke area, and took their band name from Virginia's state nickname.[318]

Festivals

wild ponies swimming across the Assateague Channel into Chincoteague.[319]

Many counties and localities host

Chincoteague ponies at the end of July is a unique local tradition expanded into a week-long carnival.[319] Every year on Thanksgiving in Richmond, the Mattaponi and Pamunkey tribes present Virginia's governor with a tribute of deer in a celebration honoring colonial treaties that enshrined their hunting rights.[210]

The Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival is a two-week festival held annually in Winchester which includes parades and bluegrass concerts. The Old Time Fiddlers' Convention in Galax, begun in 1935, is one of the oldest and largest such events worldwide, and Wolf Trap hosts the Wolf Trap Opera Company, which produces an opera festival every summer.[314] The Blue Ridge Rock Festival has operated since 2017, and has brought as many as 33,000 concert-goers to the Blue Ridge Amphitheater in Pittsylvania County.[323] Two important film festivals, the Virginia Film Festival and the VCU French Film Festival, are held annually in Charlottesville and Richmond, respectively.[324]

Law and government

Main article: Government of Virginia
All white Neoclassical building with pediment and six columns rises on a grassy hill with a large American elm tree in the left foreground. Two boxier, but similarly styled wings are attached at the building's rear.
The Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, designed by Thomas Jefferson and Charles-Louis Clérisseau, is home to the Virginia General Assembly.

In 1619, the first

British monarchy, until Virginians declared their independence from Britain in 1776. The current General Assembly is the 162nd since that year. The government today functions under the seventh Constitution of Virginia, which was approved by voters in 1970 went into effect in July 1971.[79] It is similar to the federal structure in that it provides for three branches: a strong legislature, an executive, and a unified judicial system.[326]

Virginia's legislature is

Speaker of the House and the Senate elects a President pro tempore, who presides when the lieutenant governor is not present, and both houses elect a clerk and majority and minority leaders.[328] The governor also nominates their sixteen cabinet members and others who head various state departments.[329]

State budgets are biennial and are proposed by the governor in even years.[330] Based on data through 2018, the Pew Center on the States found Virginia's government to be above average in running surpluses,[331] and U.S. News & World Report ranked the state tenth in fiscal stability.[332] The legislature starts regular sessions on the second Wednesday of every year, which meet for up to 48 days in odd years and 60 days in even years to allow more time for the state budget.[328] After regular sessions end, special sessions can be called either by the governor or with agreement of two-thirds of both houses, and twenty special sessions have been called since 2000, typically for legislation on preselected issues.[333] Though not a full-time legislature, the Assembly is classified as a hybrid because special sessions are not limited by the state constitution and often last several months.[334] A one-day "veto session" is also automatically triggered when a governor chooses to veto or return legislation to the Assembly with amendments. Vetoes can then be overturned with approval of two-thirds of both the House and Senate.[335] A bill that passes with two-thirds approval can also become law without action from the governor,[336] and Virginia has no "pocket veto", so bills become law if the governor chooses to neither approve nor veto them.[337]

Legal system

A seven-story sandstone building faced with ionic columns on a city street corner.
Unlike the federal judiciary system, justices of the Virginia Supreme Court have term limits, a mandatory retirement age, and select their own Chief Justice.

The judges and justices who make up

mandatory retirement age of 73, and they select their own Chief Justice, who is informally limited to two four-year terms.[339] Virginia was the last state to guarantee an automatic right of appeal for all civil and criminal cases, and their Court of Appeals increased from eleven to seventeen judges in 2021.[340][341]

The Code of Virginia is the statutory law and consists of the codified legislation of the General Assembly. The largest law enforcement agency in Virginia is the Virginia State Police, with 3,035 sworn and civilian members as of 2019.[342] The Virginia Marine Police patrol coastal areas, and were founded as the "Oyster Navy" in 1864 in response to oyster bed poaching.[343] The Virginia Capitol Police protect the legislature and executive department, and are the oldest police department in the United States, dating to the guards who protected the colonial leadership.[344] The governor can also call upon the Virginia National Guard, which consists of approximately 7,200 army soldiers, 1,200 airmen, 300 Defense Force members, and 400 civilians.[345]

Between 1608 and 2021, when the

decriminalized in July 2020 and legalized in July 2021.[355][356]

Politics

Main article: Politics of Virginia
Byrd era into a regular stop for many state campaigns.[357]

Over the past century, Virginia has shifted politically from being a largely rural, conservative,

Virginia Supreme Court decision in Wilkins v. Davis respectively.[361]

Enforcement of federal civil rights legislation passed in the mid-1960s helped overturn the state's Jim Crow laws that effectively disfranchised African Americans.[362] The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made Virginia one of nine states that were required to receive federal approval for changes to voting laws, until the system for including states was struck down in 2013.[363] A strict photo identification requirement, added under Governor Bob McDonnell in 2014, was repealed in 2020,[364] and the Voting Rights Act of Virginia was passed in 2021, requiring preclearance from the state Attorney General for local election changes that could result in disenfranchisement, including closing or moving polling sites.[365] Though many Jim Crow provisions were removed in Virginia's 1971 constitution, a lifetime ban on voting for felony convictions was unchanged, and by 2016, up to twenty percent of African Americans in Virginia were disenfranchised because of prior felonies.[366] That year, Governor Terry McAuliffe ended the lifetime ban and individually restored voting rights to over 200,000 ex-felons.[359] These changes moved Virginia from being ranked as the second most difficult state to vote in 2016, to the twelfth easiest in 2020.[367]

Regional differences also play a large part in Virginia politics. While urban and expanding suburban areas, including much of

base, rural southern and western areas moved to support the Republican Party in response to its "southern strategy" starting around 1970.[368][369] Rural Democratic support has nevertheless persisted in union-influenced Roanoke in Southwest Virginia, college towns such as Charlottesville and Blacksburg, and the southeastern Black Belt Region.[370] African Americans are the most reliable bloc of Democratic voters,[362] but educational attainment and gender have also become strong indicators of political alignment, with the majority of women in Virginia supporting Democratic presidential candidates since 1980.[371] International immigration and domestic migration into Virginia have also increased the proportion of eligible voters born outside the state from 44% in 1980 to 55% in 2019.[372]

State elections

See also: Elections in Virginia and Political party strength in Virginia
A map of Virginia showing the results of the 2023 Virginia House of Delegates election, with Republican districts in red and Democratic districts in blue, with heavier shading showing which changed parties.
2023 Virginia House of Delegates election
A map of Virginia showing the results of the 2023 Virginia Senate election, with Republican districts in red and Democratic districts in blue, with heavier shading showing which changed parties.
2023 Virginia Senate election
  Republican hold    Democratic hold
  Republican gain    Democratic gain

State elections in Virginia occur in odd-numbered years, with executive department elections occurring in years following U.S. presidential elections and

in 2013.[373][374] McAuliffe, a Democrat, was elected during Barack Obama's second presidential term.[375] Republicans at that time held a supermajority of seats in the House of Delegates, which they had first gained in the 2011 state elections,[376] and a one-vote majority the state senate, both of which they maintained in the 2015 elections.[377] The 2011 and 2015 elections also had the lowest voter turnout in recent history, with just 28.6% and 29.1% of registered voters participating respectively.[378]

The

2019 elections, when Democrats won full control of the General Assembly, despite a political crisis earlier that year.[384][385] Voters in 2020 then passed a referendum to give control of drawing both state and congressional districts to a commission of eight citizens and four legislators from each of the two major parties, rather than the legislature.[386]

In 2021, Glenn Youngkin became the first Republican to win the governor's race since 2009,[387] with his party also winning the races for lieutenant governor and attorney general and gaining seven seats in the House of Delegates.[388][389] Two years later, new legislative maps drawn by special masters appointed by the state supreme court led to nine retirements in the state senate and to twenty-five House delegates not seeking re-election. In those elections, Democrats claimed a slim majority of one seat in both the Senate and the House.[390]

Federal elections

See also: United States presidential elections in Virginia
Two older white men in suits bend down as one shakes the hand of a young boy.
Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, Virginia's two current U.S. Senators, are both former governors of the state.

Though Virginia was considered a "

electoral votes were carried in that election and the three since by Democratic candidates, including Joe Biden, who won by over ten percent in 2020, suggesting the state has shifted to being reliably Democratic in presidential elections. Virginia had previously voted for Republican presidential candidates in thirteen out of fourteen presidential elections from 1952 to 2004, including ten in a row from 1968 to 2004.[392] Virginia currently holds its presidential open primary election on Super Tuesday, the same day as fourteen other states, with the most recent held on March 5, 2024.[393]

In 2008, Democrats also won the class 2 seat when former Governor Mark Warner was elected to replace retiring Republican John Warner.[395] Virginia has had eleven U.S. House of Representatives seats since 1993, and control of the majority has flipped four times since then, often as part of "wave elections". In the 2010 mid-term elections, the first under President Obama, Republicans flipped the 2nd and 5th seats from the Democrats, who had flipped both in the previous election, as well as the 9th. In the 2018 mid-terms, the first under President Trump, Democrats took back the 2nd, as well as the 7th and 10th.[396] The 2nd flipped again, to Republican control, in 2022.[397]
Currently, Democrats hold six seats to Republicans' five.

Education

Main article: Education in Virginia
Five middle school students work together at a table using a soldering iron.
Middle school students in Albemarle County participate in an engineering program in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution.

Virginia's educational system consistently ranks in the top five states on the U.S. Department of Education's National Assessment of Educational Progress, with Virginia students outperforming the average in all subject areas and grade levels tested.[398] The 2021 Quality Counts report ranked Virginia's K–12 education thirteenth in the country, with a letter grade of B−.[399] Virginia's K–7 schools had a student–teacher ratio of 12.15:1 as of the 2021–22 school year, and 12.52:1 for grades 8–12.[400] All school divisions must adhere to educational standards set forth by the Virginia Department of Education, which maintains an assessment and accreditation regime known as the Standards of Learning to ensure accountability.[401]

Public

public schools in Virginia, there are Governor's Schools and selective magnet schools. The Governor's Schools are a collection of 52 regional high schools and summer programs intended for gifted students,[402][403] and include the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, the top-rated high school in the country in 2022.[404] The Virginia Council for Private Education oversees the regulation of 483 state accredited private schools.[405] An additional 50,713 students receive homeschooling.[406]

In 2022, 92.1% of high school students graduated on-time after four years,[407] and 89.3% of adults over the age 25 had their high school diploma.[3] Virginia has one of the smaller racial gaps in graduation rates among U.S. states,[408] with 90.3% of Black students graduating on time, compared to 94.9% of white students and 98.3% of Asian students. Hispanic students had the highest dropout rate, at 13.95%, with high rates being correlated with students listed as English learners.[407] Despite ending school segregation in the 1960s, seven percent of Virginia's public schools were rated as "intensely segregated" by The Civil Rights Project at UCLA in 2019, and the number has risen since 1989, when only three percent were.[409] Virginia has comparatively large public school districts, typically comprising entire counties or cities, and this helps mitigate funding gaps seen in other states such that non-white districts average slightly more funding, $255 per student as of 2019, than majority white districts.[410] Elementary schools, with Virginia's smallest districts, were found to be more segregated than state middle or high schools by a 2019 VCU study.[411]

Colleges and universities

See also: List of colleges and universities in Virginia
The University of Virginia guarantees full tuition scholarships to all in-state Virginia students with family incomes of $80,000 or less.[412]

As of 2020, Virginia has the

College of William and Mary is 13th, Virginia Tech is 23rd, George Mason University is 65th, James Madison University is 72nd, and Virginia Commonwealth University is 83rd.[414] There are 119 private institutions in the state, including Washington and Lee University and the University of Richmond, which are ranked as the country's 11th and 18th best liberal arts colleges respectively.[413][415]

Virginia Tech and Virginia State University are the state's land-grant universities, and Virginia State is one of five historically black colleges and universities in Virginia.[416] The Virginia Military Institute is the oldest state military college.[417] Virginia also operates 23 community colleges on 40 campuses which enrolled 218,985 degree-seeking students during the 2020–2021 school year.[418] In 2021, the state made community college free for most low- and middle-income students.[419] George Mason University had the largest on-campus enrollment at 38,542 students as of 2021,[420] though the private Liberty University had the largest total enrollment in the state, with 88,283 online and 15,105 on-campus students in Lynchburg as of 2019.[421]

Health

Two medical professionals, one holding a clipboard, in blue scrubs and facemasks stand outside the window of a dark blue car parked in front of a brick building.
Patients are screened for COVID-19 outside Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, the Navy's oldest continuously operating hospital.[422]

Virginia has a mixed health record. The state was ranked best for its physical environment in the 2023 United Health Foundation's Health Rankings, but 19th for its overall health outcomes and only 26th for residents healthy behaviors. Among U.S. states, Virginia has the 22nd lowest rate of premature deaths, with 8,709 per 100,000,[129] and an infant mortality rate of 5.61 per 1,000 live births.[423] The rate of uninsured Virginians dropped to 6.5% in 2023, following an expansion of Medicare in 2019.[129] Falls Church and Loudoun County were both ranked in the top ten healthiest communities in 2020 by U.S. News & World Report.[424]

There are however racial and social health disparities. With high rates of heart disease and diabetes, African Americans in Virginia have an average life expectancy four years less than whites and twelve less than Asian Americans and Latinos,[425] and were disproportionately affected by COVID-19 during the coronavirus pandemic.[426] African-American mothers are also three times more likely to die while giving birth in the state.[427] Mortality rates among white middle-class Virginians have also been rising, with drug overdose, alcohol poisoning, and suicide as leading causes.[428] Suicides in the state increased over 14% between 2009 and 2023, while deaths from drug overdoses more than doubled in that time.[129] Virginia has a ratio of 221.5 primary care physicians per 10,000 residents, the fifteenth worst rate nationally, and only 250.3 mental health providers per that number, the fourteenth worst nationwide.[129] A December 2023 report by the General Assembly found that all nine public mental health care facilities were over 95% full, causing overcrowding and delays in admissions.[429]

Weight is an issue for many Virginians, and 32.2% of adults and 14.9% of 10- to 17-year-olds are obese as of 2021.

e-cigarettes. Virginia does have above average percentage of residents who receive annual immunizations, ranking twentieth for yearly flu vaccinations.[129] In 2008, Virginia became the first U.S. state to mandate the HPV vaccine for girls for school attendance,[433] and 62.7% of adolescents have the vaccine as of 2023.[129]

The

in-vitro fertilization program, and around 2.5% of births in the state are due to IVF.[437]

Media

See also: List of newspapers in Virginia, List of radio stations in Virginia, and List of television stations in Virginia
Two geometric all glass towers connected by a central atrium stand in front of a grassy walkway and under a dark and cloudy sky
USA Today, the nation's largest circulation newspaper, is headquartered in McLean.

The

Richmond-Petersburg area is 56th and Roanoke-Lynchburg is 71st as of 2022. Northern Virginia is part of the much larger Washington, D.C. media market, which is the country's ninth-largest.[438]

There are 36

Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is headquartered in Arlington. Independent PBS affiliates exist throughout Virginia, and the Arlington PBS member station WETA-TV produces programs such as the PBS NewsHour and Washington Week
.

The most circulated

Politico, which covers national politics, has its offices in Rosslyn.[448]

Transportation

Main article: Transportation in Virginia
A train station built over a busy intersection in front of several skyscrapers at sunset.
The Silver Line extension of the Washington Metro system opened in Tysons in 2014.

Because of the 1932 Byrd Road Act, the state government controls most of Virginia's roads, instead of a local county authority as is usual in other states.[449] As of 2018, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) owns and operates 57,867 miles (93,128 km) of the total 70,105 miles (112,823 km) of roads in the state, making it the third-largest state highway system in the nation.[450]

Traffic on Virginia's roads is among the worst in the nation according to the 2019 American Community Survey. The average commute time of 28.7 minutes is the eighth-longest among U.S. states, and the Washington Metropolitan Area, which includes Northern Virginia, has the second-worst rate of traffic congestion among U.S. cities.[451] About 67.9% of workers in Virginia reported driving alone to work in 2021, the foureenth lowest percent in the U.S.,[129] while 8.5% reported carpooling,[452] and Virginia hit peak car usage before the year 2000, making it one of the first such states.[453]

Mass transit and ports

About 3.4% of Virginians commute on public transit,

James River.[457]

Virginia has

Norfolk Southern and CSX Transportation, and in 2021 the state finalized a deal to purchase 223 miles (359 km) of track and over 350 miles (560 km) of right of way from CSX for future passenger rail service.[461]

Virginia has five major airports: Dulles International and Reagan Washington National in Northern Virginia, both of which handle over 20 million passengers a year, Richmond International southeast of the state capital, Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport, and Norfolk International. Several other airports offer limited commercial passenger service, and sixty-six public airports serve the state's aviation needs.[462] The Virginia Port Authority's main seaports are those in Hampton Roads, which carried 61,505,700 short tons (55,797,000 t) of total cargo in 2021, the sixth most of United States ports.[463] The Eastern Shore of Virginia is the site of Wallops Flight Facility, a rocket launch center owned by NASA, and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, a commercial spaceport.[464][465] Space tourism is also offered through Vienna-based Space Adventures.[466]

Sports

See also: Sports teams in Virginia
A large crowd runners in brightly colored shirts race down a wide street bordered by autumnal trees.
The annual Monument Avenue 10K in Richmond, one of the ten largest timed long-distance running races in the U.S.[467]

Virginia is the most populous U.S. state without a

Virginia Beach lost the support of the city council there in 2017,[469] while a 2023 proposal to move the NBA's Washington Wizards and the NHL's Washington Capitals to a $2 billion arena in Alexandria was cancelled after formidable opposition in the Virginia Senate.[470]

Five

Low-A East league.[472] Loudoun United FC, the reserve team of D.C. United, debuted in the USL Championship in 2019,[473] while the Richmond Kickers of the USL League One have operated since 1993 and are the only team in their league to win both the league championship and the U.S. Open Cup in the same year.[474] The training facilities for both the Washington Commanders and Washington Spirit are in Loudoun County,[475][476] while the Washington Capitals practice at MedStar Capitals Iceplex in Ballston.[477]

Among individual athletes,

Country Club of Virginia outside Richmond, which hosts a charity classic on the PGA Tour Champions in October. Notable PGA Tour winners from Virginia include Sam Snead and Curtis Strange. NASCAR currently schedules Cup Series races on two tracks in Virginia: Martinsville Speedway and Richmond Raceway. Notable drivers from Virginia in the series have included Denny Hamlin and Curtis Turner.[481]

College sports

A college basketball player dressed in white with orange and blue bordering prepares to shoot a free throw.
Mike Scott and Joe Harris of the Virginia Cavaliers battle Cadarian Raines of the Virginia Tech Hokies for a rebound in a college basketball game at Cassell Coliseum in Blacksburg.

In the absence of professional sports, several of Virginia's collegiate sports programs have attracted strong followings, with a 2015 poll showing that 34% of Virginians were fans of the

both 2015 and 2019, and lead the Atlantic Coast Conference in NCAA championships.[484][485]

Division III championships in football, men's basketball, volleyball, and softball in Salem.[486] State appropriated funds are not allowed to be used for either operational or capital expenses for intercollegiate athletics.[487]

High school sports

Virginia is also home to several of the nation's top high school

soccer, basketball, baseball and softball, and volleyball.[489] Outside of the high school system, 145 youth soccer clubs operate in the Virginia Youth Soccer Association, under the USYS system, as of 2024.[490]

State symbols

Main article: List of Virginia state symbols
A large rectangular metal sign, mostly black, with the words "Welcome To Virginia" and "Virginia is for lovers" with a red heart symbol on the left stands to the right of a rural road through green hills.
The state slogan, "Virginia is for Lovers", has been used since 1969 and is featured on state welcome signs.[491]

Virginia has several nicknames, the oldest of which is the "Old Dominion". King

President of the United States, including four of the first five.[494]

The state's motto, Sic Semper Tyrannis, translates from Latin as "Thus Always to Tyrants", and is used on the state seal, which is then used on the flag.[1] While the seal was designed in 1776, and the flag was first used in the 1830s, both were made official in 1930.[495] The majority of the other symbols were made official in the late 20th century.[496] In 1940, "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" was named the state song, but it was retired in 1997 due to its nostalgic references to slavery. In March 2015, Virginia's government named "Our Great Virginia", which uses the tune of "Oh Shenandoah", as the traditional state song and "Sweet Virginia Breeze" as the popular state song.[497]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Virginia is one of only four U.S. states to use the term "Commonwealth" in its official name, along with Massachusetts, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania.

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