Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia is a state in the Southern United States. Named after Queen Elizabeth I of England, who was known as the Virgin Queen, this commonwealth was one of the thirteen colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution. Virginia was the first part of the Americas to be continuously inhabited by British colonists from its founding as a European colony up to the American Revolution. It included area explored by the 1584 expedition of Sir Walter Raleigh along the coast of North America, and at one time it also included Bermuda (or Virgineola). 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 (although the Third Charter of 1612 extended its boundaries far enough across the Atlantic to incorporate Bermuda, which the company had been in possession of since 1609). The capital is Richmond and the most populous city is Virginia Beach.

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, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, and Woodrow Wilson), exceeded by no other state. Most of the United States' early presidents were from the state. 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. Additionally, most of what is now Wisconsin and Michigan was also briefly claimed by Virginia during the Revolutionary War.

Geography

See also: List of Virginia counties, List of Virginia county seats, List of Virginia rivers, Lost Counties, Cities and Towns of Virginia, and Climate of Virginia

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 commonwealth, with Virginia's Eastern Shore, a part of the Delmarva Peninsula, completely separate (an exclave) from the rest of the Commonwealth. Geographically, Virginia is divided into the following six regions:

• Ridge and Valley—between the Appalachian Plateau and Allegheny Plateau to the west and the Blue Ridge Mountains to the east. Sometimes referred to as Valley and Ridge.
• Shenandoah Valley—located within the Ridge and Valley Region; it is referred to geographically—and culturally— as its own region.
• Blue Ridge Mountains—between the Ridge and Valley Region to the west and the Piedmont region to the east.
• Piedmont—between the Blue Ridge Mountains to the west and the Tidewater region to the east.
• Tidewater—between the fall line to the west and the Atlantic coast to the east; it includes the Eastern Shore.

Virginia's long east-west axis means that metropolitan northern Virginia lies as close to New York City and New England as to its own rural western panhandle. Conversely, Lee County, at the tip of the panhandle, is closer to eight other state capitals than it is to Richmond, Virginia's own capital.

Virginia has a number of National Park Service units, including one national park, the Shenandoah National Park. For a list of all areas managed by the National Park Service within Virginia, see: List of areas in the National Park System of the United States in Virginia.

For Virginia state parks, see: List of Virginia state parks.

Climate

The climate is considered mild compared to other areas of the United States. Most of the state east of the Blue Ridge, plus the southern part of the Shenandoah Valley, has a humid subtropical climate (Koppen climate classification Cfa). In the mountainous areas west of the Blue Ridge, the climate becomes humid continental (Koppen Dfa).

However, substantial variations occur because of the state's significant relief. Elevations in Virginia vary from sea level to Mount Rogers at 5,729 ft (1,746 m) above sea level with major gradations occurring at the edges of the Atlantic Ocean, the end of the Piedmont, and the Blue Ridge and Allegheny chains of the Appalachian Mountains. The usually moderating influence of the ocean from the east, powered by the Gulf Stream, is interspersed with brief moments of danger due to the potential for hurricanes near the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. On the other hand, cold air masses arrive over the mountains, especially in winter, leading to significant snowfalls. However, in something of an anomaly, much of the state south of Northern Virginia has not had over one foot of snow in a single storm since the Blizzard of 1996. The interaction of these elements with the state's topography create micro-climates in the Shenandoah Valley, the mountainous southwest, and the coastal plains that are slightly but noticeably distinct from each other.^[2] An additional element in recent years is the expansion of the southern suburbs of Washington into Northern Virginia, creating an urban heat island due to the increased energy output of the city. However, aside from the urban stations, no global warming effects have been noted by Virginia weather stations by 2001.^[3]

Severe weather is occasionally a concern in Virginia. As mentioned above, hurricanes make the coastal area of Virginia somewhat vulnerable, although it is rare for a major hurricane to threaten the Virginia coast as hurricanes this far north tend to become somewhat weakened. More often, Virginia is struck with the remnants of systems which hit further south bringing torrential rain to the state. Thunderstorms are an occasional concern with the state averaging anywhere from 30-50 days of thunderstorm activity annually, with the highest area of occurrence going towards the west. Conversely, eastern Virginia has a lower rate of tornadoes, and the state averages around 2 tornadoes per year. The last tornado that Virginia experienced was around November 2006.

Faults and quakes

Main article: Virginia seismic zone

Virginia has not had a history of major seismic activity: earthquakes here are rarely above 4.5 on the Richter magnitude scale. There is no volcanic activity in the state, and it is located centrally on the North American Plate—where the Earth's crust is thicker than at the edges—which leads to fewer strong earthquakes. The largest, at 6.0 magnitude, came in 1897 in Blacksburg.^[4]

History

Main article: History of Virginia

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. [2]

Spanish failure

A Spanish exploration party had come to the lower Chesapeake Bay region of Virginia around 1560 and met the Native Americans living on the Virginia Peninsula. A 17-year old teenage Powhatan boy from the village of Chiskiack (located on the lands of the present-day U.S. Naval Weapons Station Yorktown), who was the son of a chief, agreed to leave with them. He was baptized and renamed Don Luis, in honor of his sponsor, Luis de Velasco. Don Luis was educated in Mexico and Madrid, Spain.

In the fall of 1570, ten years later, the native-convert Don Luis returned to Virginia to help as a guide and translator in the establishment of the Jesuit's planned Ajacan Mission to be named for St. Mary on the lower peninsula. Shorty after they were dropped off by a Spanish ship, Don Luis abandoned the group, returning to his people, where he became a Weroance. The following February, Don Luis and a group of Powhatans returned and killed the 8 Jesuit missionaries, stealing their clothes and possessions, sparing only the life of a Spanish servant boy named Alonzo. This young boy escaped and made his way to a rival tribe, where he stayed until later rescued by another Spanish ship bringing supplies. ^[5]

When told of the events by young Alonzo, in the early part of 1572, the Spanish Governor of Florida, Pedro Menendez de Aviles, returned to Virginia to retaliate. The Spanish ultimately captured and hanged some of the Indians believed responsible for the massacre, but they were unable to locate Don Luis. While this marked the end of Spanish efforts to colonize the area which became Virginia, some historians believe that Don Luis and Opechancanough, who was later Chief of the Powhatan Confederacy, may have been the same individual. ^[6] The name Opechancanough meant "He whose Soul is White" in the Algonquin language used by the Powhatan people.

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 Virginia 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.

Independent commonwealth

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 independence of the former colonies, even though sporadic fighting continued for another 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. During the Civil War, in 1863 48 counties remaining loyal to the Union in the northwest of the state separated from Virginia to form the State 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

The center of population of Virginia is located in Goochland County [3].

As of 2006, Virginia had an estimated population of 7,642,884, which is an increase of 78,557, or 1.0%, from the prior year and an increase of 563,854, or 8.0%, since the year 2000. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 276,039 people (that is 633,794 births minus 357,755 deaths) and an increase from net migration of 276,292 people into the commonwealth. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 151,748 people, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 124,544 people.

As of 2006, 940,899 people in the commonwealth (8.14% of the population) were born outside the United States, and 99,104 were born in a different state.

Ethnicity and ancestry

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 its tobacco, cotton, and hemp plantations. Initially, 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%.

Today, African-Americans are concentrated in the eastern and southern Tidewater and Piedmont regions where plantation agriculture was the most dominant. The western mountains are populated primarily by people of British 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. To be more specific, the Norfolk area in particular has a large Filipino population, and Northern Virginia has the largest Vietnamese population on the east coast, with slightly over 99,000 Vietnamese migrants. 6.58% of Virginia's population were reported as under 5 years old, 24.6% under 18, and 11.2% were senior citizens-65+. Females made up over half of the population.

Religion

The religious affiliations of the people of Virginia are:

• Christian – 69%
  • Protestant – 49%
    • Baptist – 30%
    • Methodist – 7%
    • Episcopal – 3%
    • Presbyterian – 3%
    • Lutheran – 2%
    • Pentecostal – 2%
    • Other Protestant or general Protestant – 2%
  • Roman Catholic – 14%
  • Other Christian – 13%
• Jewish – 1%
• Muslim – 1%
• Other religions 4%
• Non-religious – 12%^[7]

Virginia is prominently Protestant; Baptists account as the largest single group with 32.1% of the population being members. Roman Catholics are the second-largest group, and also the third fastest growing. Islam, the second fastest growing group, accounts for 0.99% of the population. Buddhism and Hinduism combined form the fastest group, and largest of the "Other Religions" shown above, accounting for 1.00% of the population. About 50.0% of those practicing non-Christian faiths come from India, 5.50% from China, 3.70% from the Middle East, 2.20% from Guyana, 0.1% from Sri Lanka, and 37.9% from other nations.

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.

In 2006 Forbes Magazine voted Virginia as having the best climate for business in the United States citing economic growth, business costs/incentives and quality of life.

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 includes military installations, cattle, tobacco and peanut farming in Southside Virginia. Soy recently surpassed tobacco as the most profitable crop in Virginia. Wineries and vineyards in the Northern Neck and along the Blue Ridge Mountains also have become increasingly popular. Northern Virginia (once considered the state's dairy capital) hosts software, communications, consulting, defense contracting, diplomats, and considerable components of the professional government sector. Loudoun and Fairfax counties in Northern Virginia have the highest and second highest median household income, respectively, of all counties in the United States as of 2006.

Computer chips became the state's top export in 2006 [4] surpassing its traditional top exports of coal and cigarettes, combined.

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, Virginia is one of the wealthiest states in the South.

Virginia collects personal income tax in five income brackets, ranging from 3.0% to 5.75%. The sales and use tax rate is 4.5%. The tax rate on food is 1.5%. There is an additional 1% local tax, for a total of a 5% combined sales tax on most Virginia purchases and a combined tax rate of 2.5% on food. Virginia's property tax is set and collected at the local government level and varies throughout the commonwealth. Real estate is taxed at the local level based on 100% 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 Commonwealth imposes its own estate tax.

Transportation

Main article: Transportation in Virginia

Virginia is served by a network of Interstate Highways, arterial highways, several limited-access tollways, railroads, ferries, rapid transit, 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 rapid transit system serves Northern Virginia as far west as Fairfax County.

The Virginia Department of Transportation operates several free ferries throughout Virginia, the most notable being the Jamestown-Scotland ferry which crosses the James River between historic Jamestown and the community of Scotland in Surry County.

Law and government

The current governor of Virginia is Tim Kaine. The 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 1971 Constitution of Virginia. It is the Commonwealth's ninth constitution. Under the Constitution, the government is composed of three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial.

Virginia is one of only five states that elects its state officials in odd numbered years (The others are Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and New Jersey). Virginia holds elections for these offices every 4 years in the years following Presidential election years. Thus, the last year when Virginia elected a Governor was 2005; the next gubernatorial election will occur in 2009, with future gubernatorial elections to take place in 2013, 2017, 2021, etc.

The legislative branch or state legislature is the Virginia General Assembly, a bicameral body whose 140 members make all laws of the Commonwealth. 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 Commonwealth'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 its militia. Virginia law forbids any governor from serving consecutive terms (although a governor may serve multiple non-consecutive terms). The lieutenant governor, who is not elected on the same ticket as the 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 Commonwealth 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, 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 nearly unchallenged majority position of state and most federal offices through the middle of the 20th century. The Byrd Organization headed by Harry F. Byrd Sr. largely controlled statewide politics. In 1970, Republican A. Linwood Holton Jr. became the first Republican governor in the 20th century effectively ending the influence of the Byrd Organization. Holton was succeeded by two other Republican governors in the 1970s. Virginia has voted for Republicans in every presidential election since 1952 except for the Democratic landslide in 1964. Virginia's current streak of voting for Republicans in ten consecutive presidential elections since 1968, when Richard Nixon began the Southern Strategy, is the longest among the former Confederate States. Virginia was the only such state to vote for Gerald Ford over Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Despite Virginia's support of Republican presidential candidates and reputation as a conservative state, Democrats won all three gubernatorial elections in the 1980s and maintained large majorities in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly, however many Democrats from rural and suburban districts had conservative stances on various issues. Virginia experienced a political realignment in the 1990s as conservative Republicans George Allen and Jim Gilmore held the Governorship from 1994 until 2002. Republicans captured both houses of the General Assembly and built large majorities. Conservative and moderate Democrats from rural and suburban areas were largely replaced by Republicans. Within the Republican party, the remnants of the less conservative "mountain-valley" faction of Holton, so named because many members were from the Shenandoah Valley and Southwest Virginia, were supplanted by more conservative office holders. Virginia was considered a red state by political analysts and most of its residents.

Recently, Democrats have been gaining votes in Virginia. The Republican majorities in the General Assembly have narrowed, particularly in the Senate where Democrats now occupy 17 out of the 40 seats. In 2004, John Kerry won 45.48% of the vote in Virginia, the highest percentage of any Democrat since Jimmy Carter. Kerry won Fairfax County, long a Republican stronghold, and fared much better in the rest of Northern Virginia than Al Gore did in 2000. Though Northern Virginia continues to trend Democratic, most of rural Virginia, once a Democratic stronghold, has been trending Republican, balancing out the state's politics and reflecting the national urban-rural split. Portions of Southwest Virginia influenced by unionized coal mines and southeastern counties in the Black Belt Region have remained more likely to vote Democratic. However, as the population has increased in Northern Virginia, so has the number of Democratic voters. In 2005 and 2006, Tim Kaine and Jim Webb won nearly all jurisdictions within the region, which was not accomplished by Alexandria resident