163-695: Virginian is a demonym used to describe something as being of, from, or related to the Commonwealth of Virginia of the United States of America; it can be used as both a noun and adjective. Virginian may also refer to: Virginia Virginia , officially the Commonwealth of Virginia , is a state in the Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the Atlantic Coast and
326-481: A charter for a new colony to the Virginia Company of London . The group financed an expedition under Christopher Newport that established a settlement named Jamestown in 1607. Though more settlers soon joined, many were ill-prepared for the dangers of the new settlement. As the colony's president, John Smith secured food for the colonists from nearby tribes, but after he left in 1609, this trade stopped and
489-657: A first language . Spanish is the next most commonly spoken language, with 7.5% (611,831) of Virginia households, though age is a factor; 8.7% (120,560) of Virginians under age eighteen speak Spanish. Of Spanish speakers, 60.6% reported speaking English "very well", but again, of those under age eighteen, 78.7% speak English "very well". Arabic was the third most commonly spoken language with around 0.8% of residents, followed by Chinese languages and Vietnamese each with over 0.7%, and then Korean and Tagalog , just under 0.7% and 0.6% respectively. Southwestern United States The Southwestern United States , also known as
652-639: A group of Spanish Jesuits , explored the Chesapeake Bay during the 16th century. To help counter Spain's colonies in the Caribbean , Queen Elizabeth I of England supported Walter Raleigh 's 1584 expedition to the Atlantic coast of North America . The name "Virginia" was used by Captain Arthur Barlowe in the expedition's report, and may have been suggested by Raleigh or Elizabeth (perhaps noting her status as
815-587: A racially segregated society , and in 1902 rewrote the state constitution to include a poll tax and other voter registration measures that effectively disenfranchised most African Americans and many poor whites. New economic forces meanwhile industrialized the Commonwealth. Virginian James Albert Bonsack invented the tobacco cigarette rolling machine in 1880 leading to new large-scale production centered around Richmond. Railroad magnate Collis Potter Huntington founded Newport News Shipbuilding in 1886, which
978-425: A raid on 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 that December marked a tipping point for many who believed slavery would need to be ended by force. Abraham Lincoln 's 1860 election further convinced many southern supporters of slavery that his opposition to its expansion would ultimately mean
1141-402: A series of ambush-style killings between colonists and natives under Chief Powhatan and his brother began, resulting in mass starvation in the colony that winter. By the end of the colony's first fourteen years, over eighty percent of the roughly eight thousand settlers transported there had died. Demand for exported tobacco , however, fueled the need for more workers. Starting in 1618,
1304-697: A bloody Confederate victory. 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
1467-677: A century following the Reconstruction era , both major political parties have been competitive in Virginia since the repeal of Jim Crow laws in the 1970s. Virginia's state legislature is the Virginia General Assembly , which was established in July 1619, making it the oldest current law-making body in North America . Unlike other states, cities and counties in Virginia function as equals, but
1630-439: A century, at a magnitude of 5.8, struck central Virginia on August 23, 2011 . 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. A meteor impact is also theorized as the source of Lake Drummond , the largest of the two natural lakes in the state . The Commonwealth's carbonate rock
1793-531: A governor who ignored the assembly and sent him back to England against his will. William Berkeley was named governor in 1642, just as the turmoil of the English Civil War and Interregnum permitted the colony greater autonomy. As a supporter of the king, Berkeley welcomed other 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
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#17328370259761956-531: A large oasis at the western end of the El Paso-Tucson corridor. The region between the two cities is a major transportation trunk with settlements serving both highway and railway needs. There are also large mining operations, ranches, and agricultural oases. Both El Paso and Tucson have large military installations nearby; Fort Bliss and White Sands Missile Range north of El Paso in New Mexico, and, near Tucson,
2119-608: A major urban business and shopping center in Tysons , Virginia's largest office market. Neighboring Prince William County , with over 450,000 residents, is Virginia's second-most populous county and home to Marine Corps Base Quantico , the FBI Academy , and Manassas National Battlefield Park . Arlington County is the smallest self-governing county in the U.S. by land area, and local politicians have proposed reorganizing it as an independent city due to its high density. Loudoun County
2282-437: A national park, but is protected by both state and federal legislation and the inter-state Chesapeake Bay Program . Virginia is divided into 95 counties and 38 independent cities , which the U.S. Census Bureau describes as county-equivalents . This general method of treating cities and counties on par with each other is unique to Virginia and stretches back to the influence of Williamsburg and Norfolk in
2445-568: A referendum and went into effect in 1971. 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. The expansion of federal government offices into Northern Virginia's suburbs during the Cold War boosted the region's population and economy. The Central Intelligence Agency outgrew their offices in Foggy Bottom during
2608-522: A settlement in Arizona in 1599, but were turned back by inclement weather. In 1610, Santa Fe was founded, making it the oldest capital in United States. In 1664 Juan Archuleta led an expedition into what is now Colorado, becoming the first European to enter. A second Spanish expedition was led into Colorado by Juan Ulibarrí in 1706, during which he claimed the Colorado territory for Spain. From 1687 to 1691
2771-909: A strategy called " massive resistance ", and the General Assembly passed a package of laws in 1956 that cut off funding to local schools that desegregated , causing some to close. Courts ruled the strategy unconstitutional, and on February 2, 1959, Black students integrated schools in Arlington and Norfolk , where they were known as the Norfolk 17 . County leaders in Prince Edward, however, instead shut their school system in June 1959. The Supreme Court ordered them to reopen and integrate their public schools , which finally happened in September 1964. Federal passage of
2934-602: A strong effect on eastern and southeastern coastal areas, 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. Virginia receives an average of 43.47 inches (110 cm) of precipitation annually, with the Shenandoah Valley being the state's driest region. Virginia has around 35–45 days with thunderstorms annually, and storms are common in
3097-454: A sub-region of the South , which some consider southwestern in the general framework of the original application, meaning the "Western South." This is an area containing the basic elements of Southern history , culture , politics , religion , and linguistic and settlement patterns, yet blended with traits of the frontier West. While this particular Southwest is notably different in many ways from
3260-589: A third of Colorado, and small portions of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming. Texas current borders were set in the Compromise of 1850 , where Texas ceded land to the federal government in exchange for $ 10 million, which would go to paying off the debt Texas had accumulated in its war with Mexico. Following the Mexican Cession, the lands of what had been the Mexican territory of Alta California were in flux: portions of what
3423-791: Is bordered to the south by the Mogollon Rim and the Sonoran Desert, to the west by the Mojave Desert, and to the east by the Rocky Mountains , the Rio Grande Rift valley, and the Llano Estacado . The Plateau is characterized by a series of plateaus and mesas, interspersed with canyons. The most dramatic example is the Grand Canyon . But that is one of many dramatic vistas included within
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#17328370259763586-602: Is called the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, named after the river of the same name that flows through it. The Cumberland Plateau and Cumberland Mountains are in the southwest corner of Virginia, south of the Allegheny Plateau . In this region, rivers flow northwest into the Ohio River basin. The Virginia Seismic Zone has not had a history of regular earthquake activity. Earthquakes are rarely above 4.5 in magnitude . The Commonwealth's largest earthquake in at least
3749-480: Is filled with more than 4,000 limestone caves , ten of which are open for tourism, including the popular Luray Caverns and Skyline Caverns . Virginia's iconic Natural Bridge is the remaining roof of a collapsed limestone cave. Coal mining takes place in the three mountainous regions. More than 72 million tons of other non-fuel resources, such as slate , kyanite , sand, or gravel, were mined in Virginia in 2020 . The largest known deposits of uranium in
3912-596: Is from the Mojave Desert in California in the west (117° west longitude) to Carlsbad, New Mexico , in the east (104° west longitude); another says that it extends from the Mexico–United States border in the south to the southern areas of Colorado, Utah, and Nevada in the north (39° north latitude). In another definition, the core Southwestern U.S. includes only the states of Arizona and New Mexico; others focus on
4075-529: Is now New Mexico were claimed, but never controlled, by Texas. With the Compromise of 1850, the states of Texas and California were created (Texas as a slave state, and California as a free state), as well as the Utah Territory and New Mexico Territory . The New Mexico Territory consisted of most of Arizona and New Mexico (excluding a strip along their southern borders), a small section of southern Colorado, and
4238-680: Is the saguaro cactus , which is unique to the desert. It is bounded on the northwest by the Mojave Desert, to the north by the Colorado Plateau and to the east by the Arizona Mountains forests and the Chihuahuan Desert. Aside from the trademark saguaro, the desert has the most diverse plant life of any desert in the world, and includes many other species of cacti, including the organ-pipe, senita, prickly pear, barrel, fishhook, hedgehog, cholla, silver dollar, and jojoba. The portion of
4401-540: Is the fastest-growing county in the state. In western Virginia, Roanoke city and Montgomery County , part of the Blacksburg–Christiansburg metropolitan area , both have surpassed a population of 100,000 since 2018. On the western edge of the Tidewater region is Virginia's capital, Richmond , which has a population of around 230,000 in its city proper and over 1.3 million in its metropolitan area. On
4564-405: Is the smallest, driest and hottest desert within the United States. The Mojave gets less than 6 in (150 mm) of rain annually, and its elevation ranges from 3,000 to 6,000 feet (900 to 1,800 meters) above sea level. The most prolific vegetation is the tall Joshua tree , which grow as tall as 40 ft (12 m), and are thought to live almost 1000 years. Other major vegetation includes
4727-617: The American Southwest or simply the Southwest , is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that includes Arizona and New Mexico , along with adjacent portions of California , Colorado , Nevada , Oklahoma , Texas , and Utah . The largest cities by metropolitan area are Phoenix , Las Vegas , El Paso , Albuquerque , and Tucson . Before 1848, in the historical region of Santa Fe de Nuevo México as well as parts of Alta California and Coahuila y Tejas , settlement
4890-690: The Ancestral Pueblo people , the Hohokam , and the Mogollon , all of which existed among other surrounding cultures including the Patayan . Maize began to be cultivated in the region sometime during the early first millennium BC, but it took several hundred years for the native cultures to be dependent on it as a food source. As their dependence on maize grew, Pre-Columbian Indians began developing irrigation systems around 600 CE . According to archeological finds,
5053-609: The Appalachian Mountains . The state's capital is Richmond and its most populous city is Virginia Beach . Its most populous subdivision is Fairfax County , part of Northern Virginia , where slightly over a third of Virginia's population of 8.7 million live. Eastern Virginia is part of the Atlantic Plain , and the Middle Peninsula forms the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay . Central Virginia lies predominantly in
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5216-599: The Arizona Organic Act , which officially created the U.S. Territory of Arizona , splitting the New Mexico Territory at the 107th meridian. Utah, as shown above, evolved out of the Utah Territory, as pieces of the original territory created in 1850 were carved out: parts were ceded to Nevada, Wyoming, and Colorado in 1861; another section to Nevada in 1862; and the final section to Nevada in 1866. In 1890,
5379-619: The Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge , which marks the beginning of the Outer Banks . State agencies control about one-third of protected land in the state, and the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation manages over 75,900 acres (307.2 km ) in forty Virginia state parks and 59,222 acres (239.7 km ) in 65 Natural Area Preserves , plus three undeveloped parks. Breaks Interstate Park crosses
5542-676: The Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965), and their later enforcement by the Justice Department , helped end racial segregation in Virginia and overturn Jim Crow laws . In 1967, the Supreme Court 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
5705-555: The Committee of Nine . During the post-war 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; many achieved some land ownership during the 1870s. Virginia adopted a constitution in 1868 which guaranteed political, civil, and voting rights , and provided for free public schools. However, with many railroad lines and other infrastructure destroyed during
5868-538: The Davis-Monthan Air Force Base . About 70 miles (110 km) to the southeast are the research facilities at Fort Huachuca . These military installations form a kind of hinterland around the El Paso-Tucson region, and are served by scientific and residential communities such as Sierra Vista , Las Cruces , and Alamogordo . El Paso's influence extends north into the Mesilla Valley , and southeast along
6031-579: The Gadsden Purchase in 1853. In 1851, San Luis became the first European settlement in what is now Colorado. Of the states of which at least a portion make up the Southwest, Texas was the first to achieve statehood. On December 29, 1845, the Republic of Texas was annexed, bypassing the status of becoming a territory, and immediately became a state. Initially, its borders included parts of what would become several other states: almost half of New Mexico,
6194-822: The Korean War , and moved to Langley in 1961, in part due to a decision by the National Security Council that the agency relocate outside the District of Columbia. The Pentagon , built in Arlington during World War II as the headquarters of the Department of Defense, was struck by a hijacked plane in the September 11, 2001 attacks . Mass shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007 and in Virginia Beach in 2019 led to passage of gun control measures in 2020. Racial injustice and
6357-658: The Narváez expedition (1528–36) who had crossed eastern Texas on their way to Mexico City, led an expedition to discover the Seven Golden Cities of Cíbola. The 1582–3 expedition of Antonio de Espejo explored New Mexico and eastern Arizona; and this led to Juan de Oñate 's establishment of the Spanish province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México in 1598, with a capital founded near Ohkay Oweenge Pueblo , which he called San Juan de los Caballeros. Oñate's party also attempted to establish
6520-518: The Phoenix metropolitan area . The city of Phoenix is the largest urban center, and located in the approximate center of the area that includes Tempe , Mesa , and many others. Meinig calls the third subregion "El Paso, Tucson, and the Southern Borderlands." While El Paso and Tucson are distinctly different cities, they serve as anchor points to the hinterland between them. Tucson occupies
6683-599: The Piedmont , the foothill region of the Blue Ridge Mountains , which cross the western and southwestern parts of the state. 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. Hampton Roads is also the site of the region's main seaport and Naval Station Norfolk ,
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6846-536: The San Luis Valley of southern Colorado to south of Socorro and including the Sandia-Manzano Mountains , with an east–west breadth in the north stretching from the upper Canadian River to the upper San Juan River . The area around Albuquerque is sometimes called Central New Mexico . "Central Arizona" is a vast metropolitan area spread across one contiguous sprawling oasis, essentially equivalent to
7009-418: The Southwest Mountains around Charlottesville . The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the Appalachian Mountains with the highest points in the Commonwealth, the tallest being Mount Rogers at 5,729 feet (1,746 m). 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
7172-530: The Torpedo Factory in Alexandria had over 5,050. High-school student Barbara Rose Johns started a strike in 1951 at her underfunded and segregated school in Prince Edward County . The protests led Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill to file a lawsuit against the county . Their case joined Brown v. Board of Education at the Supreme Court, which rejected the doctrine of " separate but equal " in 1954. The segregationist establishment, led by Senator Harry F. Byrd and his Byrd Organization , reacted with
7335-837: The Tutelo , who spoke Siouan , to the west. In response to threats from these other groups to their trade network, thirty or so Virginia Algonquian -speaking tribes consolidated during the 1570s under Wahunsenacawh, known in English as Chief Powhatan . Powhatan controlled more than 150 settlements that had a total population of around 15,000 in 1607. Three-fourths of the native population in Virginia, however, died from smallpox and other Old World diseases during that century, disrupting their oral traditions and complicating research into earlier periods. 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. Several European expeditions, including
7498-552: The Virginia big-eared bat , the state mammal . The Virginia opossum is the only marsupial native to the United States and Canada, and the native Appalachian cottontail was recognized in 1992 as a distinct species of rabbit, one of three found in the state. Whales, dolphins, and porpoises have been recorded in Virginia's coastal waters, with bottlenose dolphins being the most frequent aquatic mammals . Virginia's bird fauna comprises 422 counted species, of which 359 are regularly occurring and 214 have bred in Virginia, while
7661-500: The breeding of slaves , often through rape, a profitable business. Slaves in the Richmond area were also forced into industrial jobs, including mining and shipbuilding. The failed slave uprisings of Gabriel Prosser in 1800, George Boxley in 1815, and Nat Turner in 1831, however, marked the growing resistance to slavery. Afraid of further uprisings, Virginia's government in the 1830s encouraged free Blacks to migrate to Liberia . On October 16, 1859, abolitionist John Brown led
7824-431: The class divide by disenfranchising and restricting the movement of indentured servants, who made up around eighty percent of the workforce. On the colony's frontier, 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
7987-549: The headright system tried to solve this by granting colonists farmland for their help attracting indentured servants . Enslaved Africans were first sold in Virginia in 1619. Though other Africans arrived as indentured servants 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. Laws passed in Jamestown defined slavery as race-based in 1661, as inherited maternally in 1662, and as enforceable by death in 1669. From
8150-462: The siege of Yorktown . His surrender on October 19, 1781, led to peace negotiations in Paris and secured the independence of the colonies. Virginians were instrumental in writing the United States Constitution : James Madison drafted the Virginia Plan in 1787 and the Bill of Rights in 1789. Virginia ratified the Constitution on June 25, 1788. The three-fifths compromise ensured that Virginia, with its large number of slaves, initially had
8313-446: The state fish . Downhill in the Piedmont, stripeback darter and Roanoke bass become common, as do swampfish , bluespotted sunfish , and pirate perch in the Tidewater . The Chesapeake Bay hosts clams, oysters, and 350 species of saltwater and estuarine fish , including the bay's most abundant finfish, the Bay anchovy , as well as the invasive blue catfish . An estimated 317 million Chesapeake blue crabs live in
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#17328370259768476-497: The "Virgin Queen" or that they viewed the land as being untouched) or related to an Algonquin phrase, Wingandacoa or Windgancon , or leader's name, Wingina , as heard by the expedition. The name initially applied to the entire coastal region from South Carolina in the south to Maine in the north, along with the island of Bermuda . Raleigh's colony failed, but the potential financial and strategic gains still captivated many English policymakers. In 1606, King James I issued
8639-407: The 1930s and 1940s, many definitions of the Southwest included all or part of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Colorado, and Utah. As time has gone on, the definition of the Southwest has become more solidified and more compact. For example, in 1948 the National Geographic Society defined the American Southwest as all of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico, and
8802-441: The 1930s to over one million by the 2010s. Native carnivorans include black bears , who have a population of around five to six thousand in the state, as well as bobcats , coyotes , both gray and red foxes , raccoons , weasels and skunks . Rodents include groundhogs , nutria , beavers , both gray squirrels and fox squirrels , chipmunks, and Allegheny woodrats , while the seventeen bat species include brown bats and
8965-416: The 2022–2023 winter season. Climate change in Virginia is leading to higher temperatures year-round as well as more heavy rain and flooding events. Urban heat islands can be found in many Virginia cities and suburbs, particularly in neighborhoods linked to historic redlining . The air in Virginia has statistically improved since 1998. The closure and conversion of coal power plants in Virginia and
9128-477: The American Southwest as parts of Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah. From this perspective, almost all of the region's physiographical traits, geological formations, and weather are contained within a box between 26° and 38° northern latitude, and 98° 30' and 124° western longitude. When looking at the fauna of the region, there is a broader definition of the American Southwest. The Southwestern Center for Herpetological Research defines
9291-404: The Ancestral Pueblo people, also known as the "Anasazi" (although that term is viewed by modern Pueblo people as derogatory and is becoming more and more disused), began settling in the area in approximately 1500 BC. Eventually, they would spread throughout the entire northern section of the Southwest. This culture would go through several different eras lasting from approximately 1500 BC through
9454-441: The Ancestral Puebloans, while the Akimel O'odham and Tohono O'odham claim descent from Hohokam. The area previously occupied by the Mogollon was taken over by an unrelated tribe, the Apache . While it is unclear whether any of the modern Indian tribes are descended from the Mogollon, some archeologists and historians believe that they mixed with Ancestral Puebloans and became part of the modern Hopi and Zuni tribes. Prior to
9617-427: 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 . 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 had no measurable snow during
9780-678: 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 . The Commonwealth has the highest number of Black-white interracial marriages in the US , and 8.2% of Virginians describe themselves as multiracial . More recent immigration since the late 20th century has resulted in new communities of Hispanics and Asians. As of 2020 , 10.5% of Virginia's total population describe themselves as Hispanic or Latino , and 8.8% as Asian . The state's Hispanic population rose by 92% from 2000 to 2010, with two-thirds of Hispanics in
9943-545: The Canyonlands section just to its north; the Navajo section is bordered to the south by the Grand Canyon section, which of course is dominated by the Grand Canyon; and the southeasternmost portion of the Plateau is the Datil section, consisting of valleys, mesas, and volcanic formations. Albuquerque is the most populous city often considered at the edge of this portion contained in the Southwest region, but Santa Fe, New Mexico and Flagstaff, Arizona, are also significant population centers. Phoenix , Tucson, and Las Vegas dominate
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#173283702597610106-399: The Census Bureau recognizes several hundred unincorporated communities . Over three million people, 35% of Virginians, live in the twenty jurisdictions collectively defined as Northern Virginia , part of the larger Washington metropolitan area and the Northeast megalopolis . Fairfax County , with more than 1.1 million residents, is Virginia's most populous jurisdiction, and has
10269-541: The City of Tucson was founded when the Presidio San Augustin del Tucson was created, relocating the presidio from Tubac. In 1776, two Franciscan priests, Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, led an expedition from Santa Fe heading to California. After passing through Colorado, they became the first Europeans to travel into what is now Utah. Their journey was halted by bad weather in October, and they turned back, heading south into Arizona before turning east back to Santa Fe. In 1804 Spain divided
10432-469: 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 . The Readjusters focused on building up schools, like Virginia Tech and Virginia State , and successfully forced West Virginia to share in
10595-411: The Exploration of the Columbia River of the West and Its Tributaries , which was later republished as The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons . In 1877 silver was discovered in southeastern Arizona. The notorious mining town of Tombstone, Arizona was born to service the miners. The town would become immortalized as the scene of what is considered the greatest gunfight in the history of
10758-577: The Great Dismal and Nottoway swamps. Other common trees include red spruce, Atlantic white cedar , tulip-poplar , and the flowering dogwood , the state tree and flower . Plants like milkweed , dandelions, daisies, ferns, and Virginia creeper , which is featured on the state flag , are also common. The Thompson Wildlife Area in Fauquier is known for having one of the largest populations of trillium wildflowers in North America. White-tailed deer , one of 75 mammal species found in Virginia, rebounded from an estimated population of as few as 25,000 in
10921-436: The Iroquois, and other allied tribes on both sides. A militia from several British colonies, called the Virginia Regiment , was led by Major George Washington , himself one of the investors in the Ohio Company. In the decade following the French and Indian War , the British Parliament passed new taxes which were deeply unpopular in the colonies, and in the House of Burgesses ; opposition to taxation without representation
11084-423: The Jesuit priest Eusebio Kino established several missions in the Santa Cruz River valley; and Kino further explored southern and central Arizona in 1694, during which he discovered the ruins of Casa Grande. Beginning in 1732, Spanish settlers began to enter the region, and the Spanish started bestowing land grants in Mexico and the Southwest US. In 1751, the O'odham rebelled against the Spanish incursions, but
11247-404: The Kentucky border and is one of only two inter-state parks in the United States. Sustainable logging is allowed in 26 state forests managed by the Virginia Department of Forestry totaling 71,972 acres (291.3 km ), as is hunting in 44 Wildlife Management Areas run by the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources covering over 205,000 acres (829.6 km ). The Chesapeake Bay is not
11410-437: The LDS church issued the 1890 Manifesto , which officially banned polygamy for members of the church. It was the last roadblock for Utah entering the Union, and on January 4, 1896, Utah was officially granted statehood, becoming the 45th state. In 1869, John Wesley Powell led a 3-month expedition which explored the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River. In 1875, he would publish a book describing his explorations, Report of
11573-459: The May 23 referendum, armed pro-Confederate groups prevented the casting and counting of votes from areas that opposed secession. Representatives from 27 of these northwestern counties instead began the Wheeling Convention , which organized a government loyal to the Union and led to the separation of West Virginia as a new state. The armies of the Union and Confederacy first met on July 21, 1861, in Battle of Bull Run near Manassas, Virginia ,
11736-807: The Mojave Desert. Bordered on the south by the Sonoran Desert and the east by the Colorado Plateau, its range within the region makes up the southeast tip of Nevada, the southwestern corner of Utah and the northwestern corner of Arizona. In terms of topography, the Mojave is very similar to the Great Basin Desert, which lies just to its north. Within the region, Las Vegas is the most populous city; other significant population centers include Laughlin and Pahrump in Nevada, St. George and Hurricane in Utah, and Lake Havasu City , Kingman , and Bullhead City in Arizona. The Mojave
11899-486: The Mojave and Colorado deserts in California. Other individuals who focus on Southwest studies who favored a more limited extent of the area to center on Arizona and New Mexico, with small parts of surrounding areas, include Erna Fergusson , Charles Lummis (who claimed to have coined the term, the Southwest), and cultural geographer Raymond Gastil , and ethnologist Miguel León-Portilla . Geographer D. W. Meinig defines
12062-653: The Native American (especially Apache , Pueblo , and Navajo ), Hispano , Mexican American , and frontier cowboy . The geography of the region is mainly made up of four features: the Mojave , Sonoran , and Chihuahuan Deserts , and the Colorado Plateau ; although there are other geographical features as well, such as a portion of the Great Basin Desert . The deserts dominate the southern and western reaches of
12225-549: The Ohio Valley region has helped cut the amount of particulate matter in Virginia's air in half. Current plans call for 30% of the Commonwealth's electricity to be renewable by 2030 and for all to be carbon-free by 2050. Forests cover 62% of Virginia as of 2021 , of which 80% is considered hardwood forest, meaning that trees are primarily deciduous and broad-leaved . The other 20% is pine, with loblolly and shortleaf pine dominating much of central and eastern Virginia. In
12388-528: The Old West, the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral . Copper was also discovered in 1877, near Bisbee and Jerome in Arizona, which became an important component of the economy of the Southwest. Production began in 1880 and was made more profitable by the expansion of the railroad throughout the territory during the 1880s. The early 1880s also saw the completion of the second transcontinental railroad, which ran through
12551-502: The Parry saltbush and the Mojave sage, both only found in the Mojave, as well as the creosote bush. The Colorado Plateau varies from the large stands of forests in the west, including the largest stand of ponderosa pine trees in the world, to the Mesas to the east. Although not called a desert, the Colorado Plateau is mostly made up of high desert. Within the Southwest U.S. region, the Colorado
12714-728: The Pecos, north of the [Mexican] Border, south of the Mesa Verde and the Grand Canyon, and east of the mountains which wall off Southern California and make it a land in itself." Texas has long been the focal point of this dichotomy, and is often considered, as such, the core area of "the South's Southwest." While the Trans-Pecos area is generally acknowledged as part of the desert Southwest , most of Texas and large parts of Oklahoma are often placed into
12877-634: The Plateau, which includes spectacular lava formations, "painted" deserts, sand dunes, and badlands. One of the most distinctive features of the Plateau is its longevity, having come into existence at least 500 million years ago. The Plateau can be divided into six sections, three of which fall into the Southwest region. Beginning with the Navajo section forming the northern boundary of the Southwestern United States, which has shallower canyons than those in
13040-537: The Provincia de las Californias, creating the province Alta California , which consisted primarily of what would become California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. In 1821 Mexico achieved its independence from Spain and shortly after, in 1824, developed its constitution , which established the Alta California territory, which was the same geographic area as the earlier Spanish province. In 1825, Arizona
13203-501: The Rio Grande into the Trans-Pecos region of Texas. The fourth subregion Meinig calls the "Northern Corridor and Navajolands," a major highway and railway trunk which connects Albuquerque and Flagstaff . Just north of the transportation trunk are large blocks of American Indian land. As the US expanded westward , the country's western border also shifted westward, and consequently, so did
13366-528: The Sonora Desert which lies in the Southwestern United States is the most populated area within the region. Six of the top ten major population centers of the region are found within its borders: Phoenix, Tucson , Mesa , Chandler , Glendale , and Scottsdale , all in Arizona. Also within its borders are Yuma and Prescott, Arizona . The most northwest portion of the American Southwest is covered by
13529-454: The Sonoran Desert to the west. The Chihuahuan Desert spreads across the southeastern portion of the region, covering from southeastern Arizona, across southern New Mexico, and the portion of western Texas included in the Southwest. While it is the second largest desert in the United States, only a third of the desert is within the United States, with the rest in Mexico. El Paso and Albuquerque are
13692-410: The Southwest as being only the states of Arizona, New Mexico, with parts of California, Nevada, Texas, and Utah; although they include all of those six states in their map of the region, solely for ease of defining the border. Lawrence Clark Powell, a major bibliographer whose emphasis is on the Southwest, defined the American Southwest in a 1958 Arizona Highways article as, "the lands lying west of
13855-587: The Southwest became embroiled in the Mexican–American War , partly as a result of the United States' annexation of Texas. On August 18, 1846, an American force captured Santa Fe, New Mexico. On December 16 of the same year, American forces captured Tucson, Arizona, marking the end of hostilities in the Southwest United States. When the war ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848,
14018-501: The Southwest began to decline for unknown reasons, although severe drought and encroachment from other peoples have been postulated. By the end of the 15th century, all three cultures had disappeared. The modern Puebloan tribes of the Isleta , Sandia , Cochiti , Kewa , Santa Ana , Taos , Jemez , Acoma , Laguna , and Zia , as well as the Hopi and Zuni peoples , trace their ancestry back to
14181-543: The Southwest in a very similar fashion to Reed: the portion of New Mexico west of the Llano Estacado and the portion of Arizona east of the Mojave - Sonoran Desert and south of the "canyon lands" and also including the El Paso district of western Texas and the southernmost part of Colorado. Meinig breaks the Southwest down into four distinct subregions. He calls the first subregion " Northern New Mexico ," and describes it as focused on Albuquerque and Santa Fe . It extends from
14344-548: The Southwest. Around AD 1100 their culture began to develop in the Four Corners area of the region. The Navajos migrated from northwestern Canada and eastern Alaska , where the majority of Athabaskan speakers reside. The Ute were found over most of modern-day Utah and Colorado, as well as northern New Mexico and Arizona. The Paiutes roamed an area which covered over 45,000 square miles of southern Nevada and California, south-central Utah, and northern Arizona. The Hopi settled
14507-649: The U.S. Census Bureau found that only 0.5% of Virginians were exclusively American Indian or Alaska Native , though 2.1% were in some combination with other ethnicities. The state government has extended recognition to eleven tribes. Seven tribes also have federal recognition. The Pamunkey and Mattaponi have reservations on tributaries of the York River in the Tidewater region . [REDACTED] American Community Survey five-year estimate According to U.S. Census data as of 2022 on Virginia residents aged five and older, 83% (6,805,548) speak English at home as
14670-547: 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. Virginia has a humid subtropical climate that transitions to humid continental west of the Blue Ridge Mountains . Seasonal extremes vary from average lows of 25 °F (−4 °C) in January to average highs of 86 °F (30 °C) in July. The Atlantic Ocean and Gulf Stream have
14833-472: 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. The state's most populous racial group, non-Hispanic whites , has declined as a proportion of the population from 76% in 1990 to 58.6% in 2020. Immigrants from Britain and Ireland settled throughout the Commonwealth during
14996-446: The United States gained control of all of present-day California, Nevada and Utah, as well as the majority of Arizona, and parts of New Mexico and Colorado (the rest of present-day Colorado, and most of New Mexico had been gained by the United States in their annexation of the Republic of Texas). The final portion of the Southwestern United States came about through the acquisition of the southernmost parts of Arizona and New Mexico through
15159-482: The United States. Virginia has a total area of 42,774.2 square miles (110,784.7 km ), including 3,180.13 square miles (8,236.5 km ) of water, making it the 35th- largest state by area. It is bordered by Maryland and Washington, D.C. to the northeast; 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
15322-519: The Virginia General Assembly proposed a new surveying commission in 1871. Representatives from Tennessee preferred to keep the less-straight 1803 line, and in 1893, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for them against Virginia . One result is how the city of Bristol is divided in two between the states. The Chesapeake Bay separates the contiguous portion of the Commonwealth from the two-county peninsula of Virginia's Eastern Shore . The bay
15485-667: The ancestral Puebloans. The modern-day Zuni established a culture along the Zuni River in far-eastern Arizona and western New Mexico. Both major tribes of the O'odham tribe settled in the southern and central Arizona, in the lands once controlled by their ancestors, the Hohokam. The first European intrusion into the region came from the south. In 1539, a Jesuit Franciscan named Marcos de Niza led an expedition from Mexico City which passed through eastern Arizona. The following year Francisco Vázquez de Coronado , based on reports from survivors of
15648-667: The 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 . France, which claimed this area as part of New France , viewed this as a threat, and in 1754 the French and Indian War engulfed England, France,
15811-613: The area, namely the Animas , San Andres , and Doña Ana Mountains in New Mexico; and the Franklin , Hueco , and Davis Mountains in Texas. It also reaches up into the foothills of the higher ranges such as the Black Range and Oscura Mountains in New Mexico. High above the desert, these forest-covered and sometimes snow-capped mountains form sky islands , with radically different flora and fauna than
15974-570: The area, while the plateau (which is largely made up of high desert) is the main feature north of the Mogollon Rim . The two major rivers of the region are the Colorado River , running in the northern and western areas, and the Rio Grande , running in the east, north to south. Formed approximately 8000 years ago, the Chihuahuan Desert is a relatively dry desert, although it is slightly wetter than
16137-481: The area. The Chihuahuan Desert is considered the "most biologically diverse desert in the Western Hemisphere and one of the most diverse in the world," and includes more species of cacti than any other desert in the world. The most prolific plants in this region are agave , yucca and creosote bushes , in addition to the ubiquitous presence of various cacti species. When people think of the desert southwest,
16300-699: The army and revolutionary militias. Virginia was the first colony to ratify the Articles of Confederation in December 1777. In April 1780, the capital was moved to Richmond at the urging of Governor Thomas Jefferson, who feared that Williamsburg's coastal location would make it vulnerable to British attack. British forces landed around Portsmouth in October 1780, and soldiers under Benedict Arnold raided Richmond in January 1781. The British army had over seven thousand soldiers and twenty-five warships stationed in Virginia at
16463-498: The arrival of Europeans, the Southwestern United States was inhabited by a very large population of American Indian tribes. The area once occupied by the ancestral Puebloans became inhabited by several American Indian tribes, the most populous of which were the Navajo , Ute , Southern Paiute , and Hopi. The Navajo, along with the Hopi, were the earliest of the modern Indian tribes to develop in
16626-534: The bay as of 2024 . There are 34 native species of crayfish, like the Big Sandy . Amphibians found in Virginia include the Cumberland Plateau salamander and Eastern hellbender , while the northern watersnake is the most common of the 32 snake species. As of 2019 , roughly 16.2% of land in the Commonwealth is protected by federal, state, and local governments and non-profits. Federal lands account for
16789-553: The beginning of 1781, but General Charles Cornwallis and his superiors were indecisive, and maneuvers by the three thousand soldiers under the Marquis de Lafayette and twenty-nine allied French warships together managed to confine the British to a swampy area of the Virginia Peninsula in September. Around sixteen thousand soldiers under George Washington and Comte de Rochambeau quickly converged there and defeated Cornwallis in
16952-520: The colonial period, when roughly three-fourths of immigrants came as indentured servants . 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 . Over ten percent of Virginians have German ancestry as of 2020 . The largest minority group in Virginia are Blacks and African Americans, about one-fifth of
17115-622: The colonial period. Only three other independent cities exist elsewhere in the US. The differences between counties and cities in Virginia are small and have to do with how each assess new taxes, whether a referendum is necessary to issue bonds, and with the application of Dillon's Rule , which limits the authority of cities and counties to countermand acts expressly allowed by the General Assembly . Counties can also have incorporated towns , and while there are no further administrative subdivisions ,
17278-546: 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. 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
17441-761: The colony. Virginians fought for the independence of the Thirteen Colonies in the American Revolution , and helped establish the new national government. During the American Civil War , the state government in Richmond joined the Confederacy , while many northwestern counties remained loyal to the Union , which led to the separation of West Virginia in 1863. Although the state was under one-party rule for nearly
17604-570: The command of Lt. Colonel John Robert Baylor forced the surrender of the small Union garrison stationed at Fort Fillmore , near Mesilla, New Mexico . On August 1, 1861, Baylor declared the creation of the Arizona Territory , and claimed it for the Confederacy, with Mesilla as its capital. The territory, which had been formed by the portion of the existing New Mexico Territory below the 34th parallel, became official on February 14, 1862. Nevada
17767-512: The concentration of independent cities in the Tidewater region is that several rural counties there re-incorporated as cities or consolidated with existing cities to try to hold on to their new suburban neighborhoods that started booming in the 1950s , since cities like Norfolk and Portsmouth were able to annex land from adjoining counties until a moratorium in 1987. Others, like Poquoson , became cities to try to preserve racial segregation during
17930-409: The desegregation era of the 1970s. The 2020 census found the state resident population was 8,631,393, a 7.9% increase since the 2010 census . Another 23,149 Virginians live overseas, giving the state a total population of 8,654,542. Virginia has the fourth-largest overseas population of U.S. states due to its federal employees and military personnel. The fertility rate in Virginia as of 2020
18093-526: The eastern edge is the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, where over 1.7 million reside across six counties and nine cities, including the Commonwealth's three most populous independent cities: Virginia Beach , Chesapeake , and Norfolk . Neighboring Suffolk , which includes a portion of the Great Dismal Swamp , is the largest city by area at 429.1 square miles (1,111 km ). One reason for
18256-440: The end of slavery across the country. The seizure of Fort Sumter by Confederate forces on April 14, 1861, prompted Lincoln to call for a federal army of 75,000 men from state militias . The Virginia Secession Convention of 1861 voted on April 17 to secede on the condition it was approved in a referendum the next month. The convention voted to join the Confederacy, which named Richmond its capital on May 20. During
18419-530: The establishment of Alta Ski Area , Utah's skiing began to be developed. Due to the ski conditions in the state, during WWII, the 10th Mountain Division established Camp Hale in Colorado to train elite ski troops. While this article deals with the core definition for the American Southwest, there are many others. The various definitions can be broken down into four main categories: Historical/Archeological; Geological/Topographical; Ecological; and Cultural. In
18582-403: 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. Virginia was formally restored to the United States in 1870, due to the work of
18745-595: The heart of the Southwest, called the "Santa Fe Route." It ran from Chicago, down through Topeka, then further south to Albuquerque, before heading almost due west through northern Arizona to Los Angeles. The repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1893 led to the decline of the silver mining industry in the region. In 1901, the Santa Fe Railroad reached the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, opening
18908-566: The land on Virginia's islands, which include Tangier Island in the bay and Chincoteague , one of 23 barrier islands on the Atlantic coast. The Tidewater is a coastal plain between the Atlantic coast and the fall line . It includes the Eastern Shore and major estuaries of Chesapeake Bay. The Piedmont is a series of sedimentary and igneous rock -based foothills east of the mountains. The region, known for its heavy clay soil, includes
19071-539: The land within the old Spanish and Mexican borders of the Nuevo México Province or the later American New Mexico Territory . Distinct elements of the Western lifestyle thrive in the region, such as Western wear and Southwestern cuisines , including Native American , New Mexican , and Tex-Mex , or various genres of Western music like Indigenous , New Mexico , and Tejano music styles. Likewise with
19234-699: The lands of the central and western portions of northern Arizona. Their village of Oraibi , settled in approximately AD 1100, is, along with Acoma Sky City in New Mexico, one of the oldest continuously occupied settlements in the United States. The Mogollon area became occupied by the Apaches and the Zuni. The Apache migrated into the American Southwest from the northern areas of North America at some point between 1200 and 1500. They settled throughout New Mexico, eastern Arizona, northern Mexico, parts of western Texas, and southern Colorado. The Zuni count their direct ancestry through
19397-413: The landscape of the Sonoran Desert is what mostly comes to mind. The Sonoran Desert makes up the southwestern portion of the Southwest; most of the desert lies in Mexico, but its United States component lies on the southeastern border of California, and the western 2/3 of southern Arizona. Rainfall averages between 4 and 12 in (100 and 300 mm) per year, and the desert's most widely known inhabitant
19560-516: The largest bloc in the House of Representatives . Together with the Virginia dynasty of presidents, this gave the Commonwealth national importance. Virginia is called the "Mother of States" because of its role in being carved into states such as Kentucky , and for the numbers of American pioneers born in Virginia. Between 1790 and 1860, the number of slaves in Virginia rose from around 290 thousand to over 490 thousand, roughly one-third of
19723-407: The last of the 48 contiguous United States on February 14, 1912. The 1930s saw the beginning of the ski industry in the Southwest. Resorts were established in Colorado in areas such as Estes Park , Gunnison , and on Loveland Pass . New Mexico's oldest ski area is Sandia Peak Ski Area at the eastern edge of Albuquerque , which opened to skiers in 1936. At the end of the decade, in 1939, with
19886-440: The late afternoon and evenings between April and September. These months are also the most common for tornadoes , eight of which touched down in the Commonwealth in 2023. Hurricanes and tropical storms can occur from August to October. The deadliest natural disaster in Virginia was Hurricane Camille , which killed over 150 people in 1969 mainly in inland Nelson County . Between December and March, cold-air damming caused by
20049-694: The location of the Southwestern and Northwestern United States . In the early years of the United States, newly colonized lands lying immediately west of the Appalachian Mountains were detached from North Carolina and given the name Southwest Territory . During the decades that followed, the region known as "the Southwestern United States" covered much of the Deep South east of the Mississippi River. However, as territories and eventual states to
20212-645: The major US cities in this desert, with other smaller cities being Las Cruces and Roswell in New Mexico and Willcox in Arizona. The elevation in the Chihuahuan varies from about 1,750 to 6,000 feet (500 to 1,800 meters), as there are several larger mountain ranges, such as the Organ Mountains , the Guadalupe Mountains , and the Chiracahua Mountains , plus many smaller mountain ranges contained in
20375-643: The majority, with thirty National Park Service units, such as Great Falls Park and the Appalachian Trail , and one national park, Shenandoah . Almost forty percent of Shenandoah's total 199,173 acres (806 km ) area has been designated as wilderness under the National Wilderness Preservation System . The U.S. Forest Service administers the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests , which cover more than 1.6 million acres (6,500 km ) within Virginia's mountains, and continue into West Virginia and Kentucky . The Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge also extends into North Carolina, as does
20538-485: The middle of the 15th century AD: the Basketmaker I , II , and III phases followed by the Pueblo I , II , III , and IV . As the Puebloans transitioned from a nomadic lifestyle to one based on both dry land and irrigated agriculture, their first domiciles were pithouses. The Mogollon culture developed later than the Puebloan, arising in the eastern area of the region at around 300 BC. Their range would eventually extend deep into what would become Mexico, and dominate
20701-544: The middle of the 20th century, are the focus of conservation efforts in the state and a reintroduction program in Shenandoah National Park . Virginia has 226 species of freshwater fish from 25 families, a diversity attributable to the area's varied and humid climate, topography, interconnected river system, and lack of Pleistocene glaciers . Common examples on the Cumberland Plateau and higher-elevation regions include Eastern blacknose dace , sculpin , smallmouth bass , redhorse sucker , Kanawha darter , and brook trout ,
20864-403: The north and drifted an additional 3.5 miles by the border's westernmost point . After Tennessee joined the U.S. in 1796, new surveyors worked in 1802 and 1803 to reset their border with Virginia as a line from the summit of White Top Mountain to the top of Tri-State Peak in the Cumberland Mountains . However, deviations in that border were identified when it was re-marked in 1856, and
21027-404: The northwest. That Virginia's boundary with Maryland and Washington, D.C. only extends to the low-water mark of the south shore of the Potomac River has been an issue for water rights over the years. . Virginia's southern border was defined in 1665 as 36°30' north latitude . Surveyors marking the border with North Carolina in the 18th century however started about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) to
21190-461: The population. Virginia was a major destination of the Atlantic slave trade . The Igbo ethnic group of what is now southern Nigeria were the largest African group among slaves in Virginia. 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 from before the Civil War, evidence of European fathers and African or Native American mothers. Though
21353-498: The pre-war debt. But in 1883, they were divided by a proposed repeal of anti-miscegenation laws , and days before that year's election, a riot in Danville , involving armed policemen, left four Black men and one white man dead. These events motivated a push by white supremacists to seize political power through voter suppression , and segregationists in the Democratic Party won the legislature that year and maintained control for decades. They passed Jim Crow laws that established
21516-405: 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 Confederate statues . Virginia is located in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of
21679-469: The rest are mostly winter residents or transients . Water birds include sandpipers, wood ducks, and Virginia rail , while common inland examples include warblers, woodpeckers, and cardinals, the state bird . Birds of prey include osprey, broad-winged hawks , and barred owls . There are no endemic bird species. Audubon recognizes 21 Important Bird Areas in the state. Peregrine falcons , whose numbers dramatically declined due to DDT poisoning in
21842-421: The revolt was unsuccessful. In fact, it had the exact opposite effect, for the result of the rebellion was the establishment of the presidio at Tubac , the first permanent European settlement in Arizona. In 1768, the Spanish created the Provincia de las Californias , which included California and the Southwest US. Over approximately the next 50 years, the Spanish continued to explore the Southwest, and in 1776
22005-402: The sought-after Southwestern architectural styles in the region inspired by blending Pueblo and Territorial styles, with Mediterranean Revival , Spanish Colonial architecture , Mission Revival architecture , Pueblo Deco , and Ranch-style houses in the form of the amalgamated Pueblo Revival and Territorial Revival architectures. This is due to the region's caballero heritage of
22168-400: The south the 37th parallel . In 1862 Nevada's eastern border shifted to the 38th meridian west from Washington , and finally to its current position at the 37th meridian west from Washington in 1866. The boundary modification in 1866 also included adding the southern triangular tip of the present-day state, taken from the Arizona Territory. From July 24–27, 1861 a Confederate force under
22331-402: The southeastern portion of the Southwest. Their settlements would evolve over time from pit-dwellings through pueblos and finally also incorporating cliff-dwellings. The Hohokam were the last of these ancestral cultures to develop, somewhere around AD 1, but they would grow to be the most populous of the three by AD 1300, despite being the smallest of the three in terms of area, covering most of
22494-437: The southernmost sections of Oregon, Idaho, and Wyoming, as well as parts of southwest Nebraska, western Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. By 1977, the Society's definition had narrowed to only the four states of Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico; and by 1982 the portion of the Southwest in the United States, as defined by the Society, had shrunk to Arizona and New Mexico, with the southernmost strip of Utah and Colorado, as well as
22657-410: The southwest and Mexico by the end of the period. Palisaded towns began to be built around 1200. The native population in the current boundaries of Virginia reached around 50,000 in the 1500s. Large groups in the area at that time included the Algonquian in the Tidewater region , which they referred to as Tsenacommacah , the Iroquoian -speaking Nottoway and Meherrin to the north and south, and
22820-403: The southwest portion. Beginning in approximately AD 600, the Hohokam began to develop an extensive series of irrigation canals; of the three major cultures in the Southwest, only the Ancestral Puebloans of the Chaco culture and the Hohokam developed irrigation as a means of watering their agriculture. Not long after the Hohokam reached the height of their culture, all three major cultures in
22983-476: The state government manages most local roads. It is also the only state where governors are prohibited from serving consecutive terms. Nomadic hunters are estimated to have arrived in Virginia around 17,000 years ago. Evidence from Daugherty's Cave shows it was regularly used as a rock shelter by 9,800 years ago. During the late Woodland period (500–1000 CE ), tribes coalesced, and farming, first of corn and squash, began, with beans and tobacco arriving from
23146-564: The state living in Northern Virginia . Northern Virginia also has a significant population of Vietnamese Americans , whose major wave of immigration followed the Vietnam War . Korean Americans have migrated there more recently, while about 45,000 Filipino Americans have settled in the Hampton Roads area. Tribal membership in Virginia is complicated by the legacy of the state's " pencil genocide " of intentionally categorizing Native Americans and Blacks together, and many tribal members do have African or European ancestry, or both. In 2020,
23309-532: The state population, and the number of slave owners rose to over 50 thousand. Both of these numbers represented the most in the U.S. The boom in Southern cotton production using cotton gins increased the amount of labor needed for harvesting raw cotton , but new federal laws prohibited the importation of slaves. Decades of monoculture tobacco farming had also degraded Virginia's agricultural productivity . Virginia plantations increasingly turned to exporting slaves , which broke up countless families and made
23472-421: The state than moving to it in 2021. This is largely credited to high home prices in Northern Virginia, which are driving residents there to relocate south; Raleigh is their top destination. Aside from Virginia, the top birth state for Virginians is New York , with the Northeast accounting for the largest number of domestic migrants into the state by region. About twelve percent of residents were born outside
23635-408: The surrounding desert below. The sky islands also supply the surrounding desert foothills with flowing water during the spring runoff and after the summer storms of the New Mexican monsoon season . The Chihuahuan is a "rain shadow" desert, formed between two mountain ranges (the Sierra Madre Occidental on the west and the Sierra Madre Oriental on the east) which block oceanic precipitation from reaching
23798-432: The tribes, burned Jamestown. 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 people. 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. Colonists in the 1700s were pushing westward into
23961-405: The very southern tip of Nevada; while the Utah Territory consisted of Utah, most of Nevada, and portions of Wyoming and Colorado. The New Mexico Territory was expanded along its southern extent, to its current border, with the signing of the Gadsden Purchase Treaty on December 30, 1853, which was ratified by the U.S. Congress, with some slight alterations, in April 1854. The Colorado Territory
24124-474: The very southernmost part of Utah, southwestern Colorado, the very tip of west Texas, and triangle formed by the southern tip of Nevada. This will be the defined scope that is used in this article unless otherwise specified in a particular area. Parts of the other states make up the various areas that can be included in the Southwest, depending on the source. The Learning Center of the American Southwest (LCAS) does not rely on current state boundaries, and defines
24287-448: The way for a tourism boom, a trend led by restaurant and hotel entrepreneur Fred Harvey . The last two territories within the Southwest to achieve statehood were New Mexico and Arizona. By 1863, with the splitting off of the Arizona Territory, New Mexico reached its modern borders. They became states within forty days of one another. On January 6, 1912, New Mexico became the 47th state in the Union. Arizona would shortly follow, becoming
24450-459: The west to Las Vegas, New Mexico in the East. Reed's definition is roughly equivalent to the western half of the Learning Center of the American Southwest's definition, leaving out any portion of Kansas and Oklahoma, and much of Texas, as well as the eastern half of New Mexico. Since this article is about the Southwestern United States, the areas of Sonora and Chihuahua in Mexico will be excluded. The portion left includes Arizona and western New Mexico,
24613-429: The west were added after the Mexican–American War , the geographical "Southwest" expanded, and the relationship of these new acquisitions to the South itself became "increasingly unclear." However, archeologist, Erik Reed, gives a description which is the most widely accepted as defining the American Southwest, which runs from Durango, Colorado in the north, to Durango, Mexico, in the south, and from Las Vegas, Nevada in
24776-483: The western and mountainous parts of the Commonwealth, oak and hickory are most common, while lower altitudes are more likely to have small but dense stands of hemlocks and mosses in abundance. Spongy moth infestations in oak trees and the blight in chestnut trees have decreased both of their numbers, leaving more room for hickory and the invasive tree of heaven . In the lowland tidewater and Piedmont , yellow pines tend to dominate, with bald cypress wetland forests in
24939-458: The westernmost metropolitan areas in the Southwest, while Albuquerque - Santa Fe and El Paso - Las Cruces dominate the easternmost metropolitan areas. Human history in the Southwest begins with the arrival of the Clovis culture , a Paleo-Indian hunter-gatherer culture which arrived sometime around 9000 BC. This culture remained in the area for several millennia. At some point they were replaced by three great Pre-Columbian Indian cultures:
25102-446: The world's largest naval base. Virginia's history begins with several Indigenous groups , including the Powhatan . In 1607, the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent English colony in the New World , leading to Virginia's nickname as the Old Dominion . Slaves from Africa and land from displaced native tribes fueled the growing plantation economy, but also fueled conflicts both inside and outside
25265-419: Was 55.8 per 1,000 females between the ages of 15 and 44, and the median age as of 2021 was the same as the national average of 38.8 years old. The geographic center of population is located northwest of Richmond in Hanover County , as of 2020 . Though still growing naturally as births outnumber deaths, Virginia has had a negative net migration rate since 2013, with 8,995 more people leaving
25428-423: Was admitted to the Union on October 31, 1864, becoming the 36th state. This was followed by the admittance to the Union of Colorado, which became the 38th state on August 1, 1876. Confederate Arizona was short-lived, however. By May 1862, Confederate forces had been driven out of the region by union troops. That same month a bill was introduced into the U.S. Congress, and on February 24, 1863 Abraham Lincoln signed
25591-411: Was almost non-existent outside of Nuevo México's Pueblos and Spanish or Mexican municipalities . Much of the area had been a part of New Spain and Mexico until the United States acquired the area through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 and the smaller Gadsden Purchase in 1854. While the region's boundaries are not officially defined, there have been attempts to do so. One such definition
25754-400: Was formed from the drowned river valley of the ancient Susquehanna River . 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. Sea level rise has eroded
25917-506: Was led by Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee , among others. Virginians began to coordinate their actions with other colonies in 1773 and sent delegates to the Continental Congress the following year. 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 and adopted George Mason 's Virginia Declaration of Rights , which
26080-433: Was organized on February 28, 1861, created out of lands then currently in the Utah, Kansas, Nebraska, and New Mexico territories. The Nevada Territory was also organized in 1861, on March 2, with land taken from the existing Utah Territory. Initially, only the western 2/3 of what is currently the State of Nevada was included in the territory, with its boundary to the east being the 39th meridian west from Washington , and to
26243-636: Was responsible for building 38 warships for the U.S. Navy between 1907 and 1923. During World War I , German submarines attacked ships outside the port, which was a major site for transportation of soldiers and supplies. After the war, a homecoming parade to honor African-American troops was attacked in July 1919 by the city's police as part of a renewed white-supremacy movement, known as Red Summer . The shipyard continued building warships 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, while
26406-402: Was then included in a new constitution that designated Virginia as a commonwealth . Another Virginian, Thomas Jefferson , drew upon Mason's work in drafting the national Declaration of Independence . After the American Revolutionary War began, George Washington was selected by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia to head the Continental Army , and many Virginians joined
26569-434: Was visited by its first non-Spanish Europeans, English trappers. In 1836, the Republic of Texas , which contained the easternmost of the Southwest United States, won its independence from Mexico. In 1845 the Republic of Texas was annexed by the United States and immediately became a state, bypassing the usual territory phase. The new state still contained portions of what would eventually become parts of other states. In 1846,
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