Virginia

Virginia was one of the original thirteen colonies and became the tenth state to ratify the United States Constitution on June 25, 1788. Known as the Old Dominion, it has Richmond as its capital and Virginia Beach as its largest city. Its landscape extends from the Atlantic coast and Chesapeake Bay through the Piedmont to the Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah Valley, and Appalachian highlands.

Jamestown, established in 1607, became the first permanent English settlement in North America, while the House of Burgesses, organized in 1619, introduced representative government to the colony. Virginia later produced several leaders of the American Revolution, and the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781 effectively ended the fighting. During the Civil War, Richmond served as the capital of the Confederacy, and many of the conflict’s most consequential battles were fought across the state.