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The Commonwealth of Virginia (named after Queen Elizabeth I of England, who is also known as The Virgin Queen) is one of the original thirteen states of the United States that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution. It is primarily considered to be part of the Southern United States but is sometimes included in the Mid-Atlantic States. It is one of four states that use the name commonwealth. Virginia was the first part of the Americas to be colonized permanently by England. Virginia's U.S. postal abbreviation is VA, and its Associated Press abbreviation is Va. Kentucky and West Virginia were part of Virginia at the time of the founding of the United States; but the former was admitted to the Union as a separate state in 1792, while the latter broke away from Virginia during the American Civil War. Virginia is known as the "Mother of Presidents", because it is the birthplace of eight U.S. presidents, more than any other state. Five of them were re-elected to a second term: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe and Woodrow Wilson. William Henry Harrison, John Tyler and Zachary Taylor round out the list of American Presidents from the Commonwealth of Virginia. (Harrison and Taylor died while in office.) Virginia has also been known as the "Mother of States", because portions of the original Colony subsequently became West Virginia, Kentucky, along with portions of Ohio and Indiana.
History
Native AmericansAt the time of the English colonization of Virginia, among Native American people living in what now is Virginia were the Cherokee, Chickahominy, Mattaponi, Meherrin, Monacan, Nansemond, Nottaway, Pamunkey, Pohick, Powhatan, Rappahannock, Saponi, and Tuscarora. The natives are often divided into three groups. The largest group are known as the Algonquian who numbered over 10,000. The other groups are the Iroquoian (numbering 2,500) and the Siouan. [1] Virginia Colony: 1607–1776The end of the 16th century, when England began to colonize North America, Virginia was the name that Queen Elizabeth I of England (who was known as the "Virgin Queen" because she never married) gave to the whole area explored by the 1584 expedition of Sir Walter Raleigh along the coast of North America, eventually applying to the whole coast from South Carolina to Maine. The London Virginia Company became incorporated as a joint stock company by a proprietary charter drawn up on April 10, 1606. The charter granted lands stretching from approximately the 34th parallel (North Carolina) north to approximately the 45th parallel (New York)and from the Atlantic Ocean westward. It swiftly financed the first permanent English settlement in the New World, which was at Jamestown, named in honor of King James I, in the Virginia Colony, in 1607, which settlement was founded by Captain Christopher Newport and Captain John Smith. Its Second Charter was officially ratified on May 23, 1609. Jamestown was the original capital of the Virginia Colony, and remained so until the State House burned (not the first time) in 1698. After the fire, the colonial capital was moved to nearby Middle Plantation, which was renamed Williamsburg in honor of William of Orange, King William III. Virginia was given its nickname, "The Old Dominion", by King Charles II of England at the time of the Restoration, because it had remained loyal to the crown during the English Civil War. A new stateIn 1780, during the American Revolutionary War, the capital was moved to Richmond at the urging of then-Governor Thomas Jefferson, who was afraid that Williamsburg's location made it vulnerable to a British attack. In the autumn of 1781, American troops trapped the British on the Yorktown peninsula in the famous Battle of Yorktown. This prompted a British surrender on October 19, 1781, formally ending the war and securing the former colonies' independence, even though sporadic fighting continued for two years. Patrick Henry served as the first Governor of Virginia, from 1776 to 1779, and again from 1784 to 1786. On June 12, 1776, the Virginia Convention adopted the Virginia Declaration of Rights written by George Mason, a document that influenced the Bill of Rights added later to the United States Constitution. On June 29, 1776, the convention adopted a constitution that established Virginia as a commonwealth independent of the British Empire. In 1790 both Virginia and Maryland ceded territory to form the new District of Columbia, but in an Act of the U.S. Congress dated July 9, 1846, the area south of the Potomac that had been ceded by Virginia was retroceded to Virginia effective 1847, and is now Arlington County and part of the City of Alexandria. American Civil WarVirginia is one of the states that seceded from the Union to become the Confederacy (on April 17, 1861) during the Civil War. When it did, some counties were separated as Kanawha (later renamed West Virginia), an act which was upheld by the United States Supreme Court in 1870. More battles were fought on Virginia soil than anywhere else in America during the Civil War. The city of Richmond served as the capital of the Confederacy during the war. Virginia formally rejoined the Union on January 26, 1870, after a period of post-war military rule. 20th centuryWhen Douglas Wilder was elected Governor of Virginia on January 13, 1990, he became the first African-American to serve as Governor of a U.S. state since Reconstruction. Law and governmentThe capital is Richmond: the current Governor is Tim Kaine, a Democrat. Previous capitals included Jamestown (1609–1699) and Williamsburg (1699–1780). The Virginia State Capitol building in Richmond was designed by Thomas Jefferson and the cornerstone was laid by Governor Patrick Henry in 1785. In colonial Virginia, the lower house of the legislature was called the House of Burgesses. Together with the Governor's Council, the House of Burgesses made up the General Assembly. The Governor's Council was composed of 12 men appointed by the British Monarch to advise the Governor. The Council also served as the General Court of the colony, a colonial equivalent of a Supreme Court. Members of the House of Burgesses were chosen by all those who could vote in the colony. Each county chose two people or burgesses to represent it, while the College of William and Mary and the cities of Norfolk, Williamsburg, and Jamestown each chose one burgess. The Burgesses met to make laws for the colony and set the direction for its future growth; the Council would then review the laws and either approve or disapprove them. The approval of the Burgesses, the Council, and the Governor was needed to pass a law. The idea of electing burgesses was important and new. It gave Virginians a chance to control their own government for the first time. At first the burgesses were elected by all free men in the colony. Women, indentured servants, and Native Americans could not vote. Later the rules for voting changed, making it necessary for men to own at least fifty acres (200,000 m²) of land in order to vote. Founded in 1619, the Virginia General Assembly is still in existence as the oldest legislature in the New World. Today, the General Assembly is made up of the Senate and the House of Delegates. Like many other states, by the 1850s Virginia featured a state legislature, several executive officers, and an independent judiciary. By the time of the Constitution of 1901, which lasted longer than any other state constitution, the General Assembly continued as the legislature, the Supreme Court of Appeals acted as the judiciary, and the eight elected executive officers were the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of the Commonwealth, State Treasurer, Auditor of Public Accounts, Superintendent of Public Instruction and Commissioner of Agriculture and Immigration. The Constitution of 1901 was amended many times, notably in the 1930s and 1950s, before it was abandoned in favour of more modern government, with fewer elected officials, reformed local governments and a more streamlined judiciary. Virginia currently functions under the 1970 Constitution of Virginia. It is the state's ninth constitution. Under the Constitution, the State Government is composed of three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. The legislative branch or state legislature is the Virginia General Assembly, a bicameral body whose 140 members make all state laws. Members of the Virginia House of Delegates serve two-year terms, while members of the Virginia Senate serve four-year terms. The General Assembly also selects the state's Auditor of Public Accounts. The statutory law enacted by the General Assembly is codified in the Code of Virginia. The executive branch comprises the Governor of Virginia, the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, and the Attorney General of Virginia. All three officers are separately elected to four-year terms in years following Presidential elections (1997, 2001, 2005, etc) and take office in January of the following year. The Governor serves as chief executive officer of the Commonwealth and as Commander-in-Chief of the State Militia. State law forbids any Governor from serving consecutive terms. The Lieutenant Governor serves as President of the Senate of Virginia and is first in the line of succession to the Governor. The Attorney General is chief legal advisor to the Governor and the General Assembly, chief lawyer of the state and the head of the Department of Law. The Attorney General is second in the line of succession to the Governor. Whenever there is a vacancy in all three executive offices of Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General, then the Speaker of the House of the Virginia House of Delegates becomes Governor. The Office of the Governor's Secretaries helps manage the Governor's Cabinet, comprised of the following individuals, all appointed by the Governor:
The judicial branch consists of the Supreme Court of Virginia, the Virginia Court of Appeals, the General District Courts and the Circuit Courts. The Virginia Supreme Court, composed of the chief justice and six other judges is the highest court in the Commonwealth (although, as with all the states, the U.S. Supreme Court has appellate jurisdiction over decisions by the Virginia Supreme Court involving substantial questions of U.S. Constitution law or constitutional rights). The Chief Justice and the Virginia Supreme Court also serve as the administrative body for the entire Virginia court system. The 95 counties and the 39 independent cities all have their own governments, usually a county board of supervisors or city council which choose a city manager or county administrator to serve as a professional, non-political chief administrator under the council-manager form of government. There are exceptions, notably Richmond, Virginia, which has a popularly-elected Mayor who serves as chief executive separate from the city council. Political controlAfter William Mahone and the Readjuster Party lost control of Virginia politics around 1883, the Democratic Party held a strong majority position of state and federal offices for over 85 years. In 1970, Republican A. Linwood Holton Jr. became the first Republican governor in the 20th century. In the years thereafter, Republicans made substantial gains, and for a time, controlled both houses of the Virginia General Assembly, as well as the Governorship from 1994 until 2002.
Incumbent Virginia governors cannot run for re-election under the state constitution and in the November 2005 election to succeed Democratic Governor Mark Warner, Democrat Tim Kaine beat Republican Attorney General Jerry Kilgore (Scott County), and State Senator Russ Potts (Winchester) (longtime Republican) running as an independent. Kaine was inaugurated as Governor on January 14, 2006. Virginia is an alcoholic beverage control state. Distilled spirits, plus wine greater than 14% alcohol by volume, are available for off-premises sale solely in state-owned and -operated retail outlets. GeographyMap of Virginia Virginia - topographic map
Virginia is bordered by West Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia (across the Potomac River) to the north, by Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, by North Carolina and Tennessee to the south, and by Kentucky and West Virginia to the west. The Chesapeake Bay divides the state, with the eastern portion (called 'the Eastern Shore of Virginia'), a part of the Delmarva Peninsula, completely separate (an exclave) from the rest of the state. Geographically, Virginia is divided into the following 5 regions:
Virginia's long east-west axis means that metropolitan northern Virginia lies much closer to New York and New England than to the rural western panhandle of its own state. Conversely, Lee County, at the tip of the panhandle, is closer to 8 state capitals than it is to Richmond. Demographics
As of 2005, Virginia has an estimated population of 7,567,465, which is an increase of 86,133, or 1.2%, from the prior year and an increase of 488,435, or 6.9%, since the year 2000. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 231,055 people (that is 531,476 births minus 300,421 deaths) and an increase due to net migration of 243,498 people into the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 139,977 people, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 103,521 people. As of 2004, the state had a foreign-born population of 679,500 (9.1% of the state population), of which an estimated 100,000 were illegal aliens (15% of the foreign-born).
Historically, as the largest and wealthiest colony and state and the birthplace of Southern and American culture, a large proportion (about half) of Virginia's population was made up of black slaves who worked the state's tobacco, cotton, and hemp plantations. The twentieth century Great Migration of blacks from the rural South to the urban North reduced Virginia's black population to about 20 percent. Today Blacks are concentrated in the eastern and southern tidewater and piedmont regions where plantation agriculture was most dominant. The western mountains are populated primarily by people of British and American ancestry. People of German descent are present in sizable numbers in the northwestern mountains and Shenandoah Valley. And due to recent immigration, there is a rapidly growing population of Hispanics (particularly Central Americans) and Asians in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. 6.5% of Virginia's population were reported as under 5, 24.6% under 18, and 11.2% were 65 or older. Females made up approximately 51% of the population. ReligionThe religious affiliations of the people of Virginia are:
EconomyGreetings from VirginiaVirginia's economy is well balanced with diverse sources of income. From the Hampton Roads area to Richmond and down to Lee County in the southeast it includes military installations, cattle, tobacco and peanut farming in Southside Virginia, manufacturing, and transportation. Northern Virginia (once the dairy capital of Virginia) hosts software, communications, consulting, defense contracting, diplomats, and considerable components of the professional government sector. Virginia, arguably the wealthiest southern state before the Civil War, recovered from the civil war and the Great Depression much faster than the rest of the south. Today it is still significantly wealthier than the rest of the south, although much of that is from the northern influence around Washington D.C. Virginia Beach is the most populous city in the commonwealth, with Norfolk and Chesapeake second and third, respectively. Norfolk forms the urban core of this metropolitan area, which is home to over 1.6 million people. Fairfax County is the most populous county in Virginia; Currently, over 1 million people live there, making the population larger than that of seven states (Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming).
TransportationRecent Virginia license plate
Virginia is served by a network of Interstate Highways, arterial highways, several limited access tollways, bridges, tunnels, and five bridge-tunnel complexes known as the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel, the Elizabeth River Downtown Bridge-Tunnel, the Elizabeth River Midtown Bridge-Tunnel, and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. The Springfield Interchange Project is a major effort to help traffic flow at the Interstate 95, 395, and Capitol Beltway (495) interchange south of Washington, D.C.. Virginia has Amtrak passenger rail service along several corridors and Virginia Railway Express (VRE) maintains two commuter lines into Washington, D.C. The Washington Metro serves Northern Virginia as far west as Fairfax County. SportsVirginia is by far the most populous U.S. state without a major professional sports league franchise. The reasons for this include the close proximity of Washington, D.C. which has franchises in all four major sports, and the lack of any dominant city or market within the state. An attempt to bring a National Hockey League expansion franchise to Hampton Roads in the 1990s was rejected by the NHL. A proposal to relocate the Montreal Expos to Norfolk was considered by Major League Baseball, but MLB eventually settled on the national capital as the Expos' new home. Virginia is home to many minor league clubs, especially in baseball and soccer. There is currently talk of the Florida Marlins relocating to Norfolk. Baseball
Basketball
Ice hockey
Indoor football
Soccer
Important cities and townsUnder the laws in effect in Virginia, all municipalities incorporated as cities are independent of any county. Of the 43 independent cities in the United States, 39 are in Virginia. The complete list of Virginia independent cities follows:
Some other municipalities are incorporated towns, which are not independent of a county, but rather, located within one of the 95 counties in Virginia. These incorporated towns include:
Finally, Arlington County, which lies across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., is a completely urbanized community, much like a city, but remains organized as a county, and has no towns within its borders. There are also hundreds of other unincorporated communities (sometimes informally called villages or towns) in Virginia. Colleges and universities
Miscellaneous information
USS Virginia was named in honor of this state. See also
Other placesThere are also places named Virginia in the States of Illinois and Minnesota: see
External links
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