Virginia

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The Commonwealth of Virginia (named after Queen Elizabeth I of England, who was 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 located in the Southern United States but is sometimes included, geographically, 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 is known as the "Mother of Presidents", because it is the birthplace of eight U.S. presidents (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Woodrow Wilson, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler and Zachary Taylor), more than any other state. Four of the first five presidents were from Virginia, and seven of the first twelve. The most recent Virginian president was Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president. Virginia has also been known as the "Mother of States", because portions of the original Colony subsequently became Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and West Virginia as well as some portions of Ohio.

Geography

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:

Tidewater—stretching from the Atlantic coast to the fall line
Piedmont—east of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Tidewater Region
Blue Ridge Mountains—east of the Appalachian Mountains to the Blue Ridge Mountain Region
Valley and Ridge—Appalachian Mountains and Shenandoah Valley Region
Appalachian Plateau—west of the Appalachian Mountains

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 other state capitals than it is to Richmond.

Areas managed by the National Park Service include:

History

Native Americans

At the time of the English colonization of Virginia, 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. ^*

Virginia Colony: 1607–1776

At the end of the 16th century, when England began to colonize North America, Queen Elizabeth I of England (who was known as the "Virgin Queen" because she never married) gave the name "Virginia" to the whole area explored by the 1584 expedition of Sir Walter Raleigh along the coast of North America. The name eventually applied 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. The settlement was founded by Captain Christopher Newport and Captain John Smith. Its Second Charter was officially ratified on May 23, 1609. The Viginia Company was also left in control of Bermuda from 1609, when its flagship was wrecked there en route to Jamestown. Its Royal Charter was extended to include the Islands of Bermuda, alias The Somers Isles (sometimes known as Virgineola), in 1612. Bermuda remained part of Virginia until 1614, when its administration was handed to the Crown (although a spin-off of the Virginia Company, the Somers Isles Company, would oversee it from 1615 to 1684).

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 state

In 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 War

Virginia is one of the states that seceded from the Union (on April 17, 1861) and operated independently until it joined the Confederacy during the Civil War when it turned over its military on June 8 and ratified the Constitution of the Confederate States on June 19. 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.

Demographics

Historical populations
Census year	Population

1790	691,737
1800	807,557
1810	877,683
1820	938,261
1830	1,044,054
1840	1,025,227
1850	1,119,348
1860	1,219,630
1870	1,225,163
1880	1,512,565
1890	1,655,980
1900	1,854,184
1910	2,061,612
1920	2,309,187
1930	2,421,851
1940	2,677,773
1950	3,318,680
1960	3,966,949
1970	4,648,494
1980	5,346,818
1990	6,187,358
2000	7,078,515

As of 2005, Virginia had 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 from 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 over 679,500 (9.1% of the state population), of which an estimated 100,000 were illegal aliens (15% of the foreign-born).

Ethnicity and ancestry

The ethnic makeup of the state as of 2004:^*

68.7% White, not of Hispanic origin
19.9% Black
5.7% Hispanic of any race
4.4% Asian
0.3% Native American
1.5% Mixed race

The five largest reported ancestry groups in Virginia are: African American (19.6%), German (11.7%), American (11.2%), English (11.1%), Irish (9.8%).

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. Intially, these slaves came from West Central Africa, primarily Angola. During the eighteenth century, however, about half of them derived from various ethnicities located in the Niger Delta region of modern day Nigeria. 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 because of recent immigration, there is a rapidly growing population of Hispanics (particularly Central Americans) and Asians in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC.Also, the Norfolk- Virginia Beach area is home to over 80,000 Filipinos and over 100,000 Vietnamese residents, along with several hundred Hmong.

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.

Religion

The religious affiliations of the people of Virginia are:

Christian – 84%
- Protestant – 69%
  - Baptist – 32%
  - Methodist – 8%
  - Episcopal – 3%
  - Presbyterian – 3%
  - Other Protestant or general Protestant – 23%
- Roman Catholic – 14%
- Other Christian – 1%
Other Religions – 2%
Non-Religious – 12%

Economy

According to the 2004 U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis report, Virginia’s gross state product was $326.6 billion. The per capita personal income was $35,477 in 2004.

Virginia's economy is well balanced with diverse sources of income. From the Hampton Roads area to Richmond and down to Lee County in the southwest it includes military installations, cattle, tobacco and peanut farming in Southside Virginia. Northern Virginia (once the dairy capital of Virginia) hosts software, communications, consulting, defense contracting, diplomats, and considerable components of the professional government sector.

Coal mining in Virginia dates to Midlothian and Gayton during the 18th and 19th century, and some mines are still active in southwest Virginia. Kaolin clay has also been mined at Willis Mountain and at Bon Air.

Gold mining was once economically significant, and, at its peak, Virginia was the third largest gold producing state. Though there are no active commercial mines, gold prospecting continues today on an amateur/hobbyist basis. A large diamond was once discovered during a minor excavation in Manchester.

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 collects personal income tax in five income brackets, ranging from 3.0 percent to 5.75 percent. The sales and use tax rate is 4 percent. There is an additional 1 percent local tax, for a total of a 5-percent combined sales tax on most Virginia purchases. The state tax rate on food is 2.5 percent, resulting in a combined tax rate of 3.5 percent. Additional reductions of 0.5 percent each are planned for July 1, 2006, and July 1, 2007. Virginia has no state property tax. The tax is set and collected at the local government level. Real estate is taxed at the local level based on 100 percent of fair market value. Effective true tax rates on real estate vary and are set by locality. Tangible personal property also is taxed at the local level and is based on a percentage or percentages of original cost. Tangible personal property includes, but is not limited to, machinery and equipment, furniture, fixtures, and trucks and automobiles.The Virginia General Assembly exempted intangible personal property from taxation in 1984 by making the tax rate zero. Virginia does not collect inheritance taxes; however, its estate tax is decoupled from the federal estate tax laws, and therefore the state imposes its own estate tax.

Transportation

Virginia is served by a network of Interstate Highways, arterial highways, several limited-access tollways, bridges, tunnels and even bridge-tunnels.

In the Hampton Roads area, there are three bridge-tunnel complexes known as the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel, and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. Two tunnels and numerous bridges span portions of the Elizabeth River. The James River Bridge, opened in 1928, and rebuilt in the 1970s, spans the James River near its mouth and north of the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel.

The Springfield Interchange Project is a major effort to help traffic flow at the Interstate 95, 395, and Capital 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.

Law and government

The current governor of Virginia is Tim Kaine, a Democrat. 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 favor 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:

Governor's Chief of Staff
Secretary of Administration
Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry
Secretary of Commerce and Trade
Secretary of the Commonwealth
Secretary of Education
Secretary of Finance
Secretary of Health and Human Resources
Secretary of Natural Resources
Secretary of Public Safety
Secretary of Technology
Secretary of Transportation
Assistant to the Governor for Commonwealth Preparedness
Counselor to 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.

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.

Politics

After 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. Since the implementation of Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy in 1968, Virginia has voted for Republicans for president in every election since, longer than any other state. 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.

Republicans hold both seats in the U.S. Senate, 8 of 11 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, hold a majority in the Virginia House of Delegates and the Virginia Senate, and a Republican is Virginia's Lieutenant Governor. Republican Robert McDonnell became Attorney General by 360 votes following a limited recount of ballots for that race.
Democrats control the remaining 3 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The newly inaugurated Governor, Tim Kaine, is a Democrat. The Democrats have been gaining seats in the Virginia House of Delegates.

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 longtime Republican State Senator Russ Potts (Winchester), who ran as an independent. Kaine was inaugurated as governor on January 14, 2006.

Important cities and towns

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. It is currently home to over 1 million people, making the population larger than that of seven states (Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming).

Under 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 are located within one of the 95 counties in Virginia. These incorporated towns include:

Arlington County, which lies across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., is a completely urbanized community; it is 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.

Education

Colleges and universities

Professional sports teams

Virginia is by far the most populous U.S. state without a major professional sports league franchise. The reasons for this include the 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. Virginia has many outstanding golf courses including Upper Cascades, Kingsmill Resortand the new Greg Norman course at Lansdowne Resort. Other favorites include Old Trail GC, Winton Country Club and Devils Knob at Wintergreen Resort.

Club	Sport	League
Alexandria-Mongolia United	Basketball	American Basketball Association
Bluefield Orioles	Baseball	Appalachian League
Bristol White Sox	Baseball	Appalachian League
Danville Braves	Baseball	Appalachian League
Lynchburg Hillcats	Baseball	Carolina League
Norfolk Tides	Baseball	International League
Potomac Nationals	Baseball	Carolina League
Pulaski Blue Jays	Baseball	Appalachian League
Richmond Braves	Baseball	International League
Salem Avalanche	Baseball	Carolina League
Winchester Royals	Baseball	Valley Baseball League
Staunton Braves	Baseball	Valley Baseball League
Norfolk Admirals	Ice hockey	American Hockey League
Richmond Riverdogs	Ice hockey	Southern Professional Hockey League
Richmond Bandits	Indoor football	American Indoor Football League
Chesapeake Athletic	Soccer	Super Y-League
Hampton Roads Piranhas	Soccer	W-League
Northern Virginia Majestics	Soccer	W-League
Northern Virginia Royals	Soccer	USL Second Division
Richmond Kickers	Soccer	USL First Division
Richmond Kickers Destiny	Soccer	W-League
Richmond Kickers Future	Soccer	Premiere Development League
Virginia Beach Mariners	Soccer	USL First Division
Virginia Beach Submariners	Soccer	Premier Development League
Williamsburg Legacy	Soccer	Premier Development League

Miscellaneous topics

When 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.

USS Virginia was named in honor of this state.

State symbols

State motto: "Sic semper tyrannis." (Thus always to tyrants.)
State bird: Cardinal
State dog: American Foxhound
State nickname: Old Dominion
State flower: Dogwood
State tree: Dogwood
State insect: Tiger swallowtail
State bat: Virginia Big-Eared Bat
State song: none; the former state song, "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny," was retired in 1997 because some found its lyrics to be racially offensive
State dance: Square dance
State boat: Chesapeake Bay deadrise
State fish: Brook trout
State shell: Oyster
State fossil: Chesapecten jeffersonius
State beverage: Milk

External links

Virginia | 1788 establishments | Former British colonies

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