Virginia

Virginia is one of the original 13 states of the United States that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution and is generally classified as part of the South. Its official name is the Commonwealth of Virginia; it is one of four Commonwealths out of the fifty United States.

West Virginia was part of Virginia at the time of the founding of the United States, but formed a separate state at the time of the American Civil War.

History

Among Native American people living in what now is Virginia were the Powhatan, Nottaway, Meherrin, Monacan, Saponi, and Cherokee.

At the end of the 16th century when England began to colonize North America, "Virginia" was the name Queen Elizabeth I of England gave to the whole area Sir Walter Raleigh's 1584 expedition explored on 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 royal charter drawn up on April 10, 1606. They swiftly financed the first permanent English settlement in the New World which was at Jamestown in the Virginia Colony in 1607. Its Second Charter was officially ratified on May 23, 1609.

Virginia was given its nickname "The Old Dominion" by King Charles II of England at the time of the Restoration for remaining loyal to the crown during the English Civil War. In 1790 both Virginia and Maryland ceded territory to form the new District of Columbia, but in an Act of Congress dated July 9, 1846, the territory that had been ceded was returned to Virginia, and is now Arlington County and part of the City of Alexandria. Virginia is one of the states that seceded from the Union to become the Confederacy during the Civil War. When it did, some counties were separated as West Virginia, an act which was upheld by the United States Supreme Court in 1870.

Virginia formally rejoined the Union on January 26, 1870 after a period of post-war military rule.

On January 13, 1990 Douglas Wilder became the first African American governor of a US state to serve as Governor after Reconstruction when he was elected Governor of Virginia.

Law and Government

The capital is Richmond. See: List of Virginia Governors

House of Burgesses: The lower house of the legislature in colonial Virginia. The House of Burgesses made up the other part of the General Assembly. Its members were chosen by all those who could vote in the colony. Each settlement chose two people or burgesses to represent it. The Burgesses met to make laws for the colony and set the direction for its future growth. 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 of land in order to vote.

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 to the west.

Chesapeake Bay divides the state, with the eastern portion (called 'the Eastern Shore"), a part of the Delmarva Peninsula, completely separate from the rest of the state.

Demographics

As of 2001, the population is 7,196,750.

Important Cities and Towns

Unlike any other state of the Union, under the laws in effect in Virginia, all municipalities incorporated as cities are independent of any county. Of the approximately 43 independent cities in the United States, 39 are in Virginia. The complete list of Virginia independent cities follows:

Some other municipalities incorporated as towns, which are not independent of a county, include:

Finally, Arlington County, which lies across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., is a completely urbanized community, but has no incorporated area within its borders.