Hampton Roads is the name of
both a body of water and the metropolitan area which surrounds it
in southeastern Virginia
.
Hampton
Roads is notable for its year-round ice-free harbor, for United States Navy, Coast Guard, Air
Force, NASA
, Marines, and Army facilities, shipyards, coal piers, and hundreds of miles of waterfront
property and beaches, all of which contribute to the diversity and
stability of the region's economy.
The
water area known as Hampton Roads (informally
known locally as "the harbor") is one of the world's biggest
natural harbors (more accurately, roadstead), and incorporates the mouths of the
Elizabeth River and
James River with several
smaller rivers and itself empties into the Chesapeake Bay near its mouth leading to the
Atlantic
Ocean
.
The
land area (formerly known as "Tidewater") includes dozens of
cities, counties and towns on the Virginia Peninsula
and in South Hampton
Roads.
of the more outlying areas from the harbor may or may not be
included as part of "Hampton Roads", depending upon the
organization or purpose.
For a commonly used example, as defined for
federal economic purposes, the Hampton Roads metropolitan
statistical area (MSA)
additionally includes one county
in northeastern North Carolina
and two counties in Virginia’s Middle Peninsula. Officially, the
Virginia
Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC MSA has a population of about
1.7 million, the 35th-largest metropolitan area in the United
States.
Many are predicting that the Hampton Roads
Area, and especially the "Seven Cities" of Virginia
Beach
, Norfolk
, Chesapeake
, Newport News
, Hampton
, Portsmouth
, and Suffolk
, will grow faster than expected. The
predictions of some researchers estimate that the 2010 census will
show a population well in excess of 2 million.
The area is steeped in 400 years of American history, and hundreds
of historical sites and attractions in the area draw visitors from
around the world each year. The harbor was the key to the Hampton
Roads area's growth, both on land and in water-related activities
and events. Ironically, the harbor and its tributary waterways were
(and still are) both important transportation conduits and
obstacles to other land-based commerce and travel. Creating and
maintaining adequate infrastructure has long been a major
challenge.
The Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel
(HRBT) and the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial
Bridge-Tunnel
(MMMBT) are major harbor crossings of the Hampton Roads Beltway which links each
of the largest Seven Cities of Hampton Roads. In 2007, the
new
Hampton Roads
Transportation Authority (HRTA) was formed under a
controversial state law to levy various additional taxes to
generate funding for major regional transportation projects,
including a long-sought and costly third crossing of the harbor of
Hampton Roads.
Name
The term "Hampton Roads" is a centuries-old designation that
originated when the region was a struggling English outpost nearly
four hundred years ago. The name is believed to have originated
from the combination of two separate words.
The word "Hampton" honors one of the founders of the
Virginia Company of London and a
great supporter of the colonization of Virginia,
Henry Wriothesley,
3rd Earl of Southampton. In the easternmost part of the new
colony, downstream from Jamestown, the early administrative center
was known as
Elizabeth
Cittie [sic], named for
Princess Elizabeth, the daughter of
King James I, and formally designated by the Virginia Company in
1619. (The
Elizabeth
River was also named for the princess).
The town at the center of Elizabeth Cittie became known as simply
"Hampton", and a nearby waterway was designated Hampton Creek (also
known as Hampton River).
The town (and later city) of Hampton was the
county seat of Elizabeth City County for
over 300 years, until they were politically consolidated into the
current large independent city
known as Hampton,
Virginia
, in 1952. The City of Hampton thus became one of the
large Seven Cities of Hampton Roads
, of which four others also grew to the larger sizes
by consolidating with neighboring jurisdictions such as counties
and towns in the mid-twentieth century.
A land
area to the north across the bay in what is now called "the
Eastern Shore" became known as
Northampton
. Another area south of the James River became
Southampton
. As with Hampton, both of these names also
remain in use in modern times.
The term "Roads" as applied to a water channel is used elsewhere.
Examples
include Castle Roads, in
another of the Virginia Company's
settlements, Bermuda
, and Lahaina Roads, in
Hawaii
.
Signifying the safety of a port, the word "roads" (also called
roadstead) in nautical terminology of the
day meant "a place less sheltered than a harbor where ships may
ride at anchor."
The
combination of the words as "Hampton Roads" was recorded as the
channel linking the James, Elizabeth, and Nansemond rivers with the
Chesapeake Bay in an act of the Virginia
General Assembly
in 1755. Perhaps by definition, the label
"harbor" is technically incorrect. However, Hampton Roads has
become well-known as the "world's greatest harbor." This is
partially because it is the northernmost major East Coast port of
the United States which is normally ice-free year round. The latter
status is claimed with the notable exception of extraordinarily
cold winter of 1917, which was
the entire U.S.'s coldest year on
record.
Although the designation initially applied to the water area, the
region has also come to be known as "Hampton Roads", a label more
specific than the term "Tidewater Virginia", which could by
implication, include other areas of tidal lands in eastern
Virginia. The
U.S. Postal Service changed its postmark from
"Tidewater Virginia" to "Hampton Roads, Virginia" beginning in
1983.
History
The harbor area of Hampton Roads, from official state map of
pre-civil war Virginia circa 1858.
image from the Library of
Virginia
The first colonists arrived in 1607 when English
Captain Christopher Newport's three
ships, his
flagship Susan Constant, the smaller
Godspeed, and even smaller
Discovery landed in April
1607 at
Cape Henry along the Atlantic
Coast in today's City of Virginia Beach, an event now known as the
"First Landing." However, they moved on, under orders from the
Virginia Company of
London, the crews and new colonists sought a more sheltered
area up one of the rivers.
Their major concern was other European
competitors such as the Spanish
, who had earlier discovered the Chesapeake Bay and Virginia's rivers, and had
even in 1570 begun a small settlement on the Virginia
Peninsula
known as the Ajacan
Mission, which had failed.
During 18 days of exploring the area, they surely saw the enormous
harbor of Hampton Roads, and some of the party must have
appreciated its possibilities.
However, after exploring the James River west at least as far as
present-day Hopewell
, they agreed upon Jamestown Island, where they established
the first successful English colony in the New
World on 14 May 1607.
Despite the defensive advantages of that location against Spanish
attacks, the low and marshy site at Jamestown proved a very poor
choice in many other ways. More than five years of fragile
existence and high mortality rates followed including the
Starving Time of 1609-10 when over
80% of the 500 colonists perished before the future of the
Virginia Colony began to appear more
promising. The change came about with the just-in-time arrival of a
new Governor,
Lord De La Warr, and a
new colonist with a successful business idea named
John Rolfe, who established the Virginia tobacco
industry.
For centuries, the harbor and rivers of Hampton Roads have been
ideal locations for both commerce and for many major shipyards.
Some were
established as early as the late 18th century such as the Gosport Navy
Yard
in what is now the City of Portsmouth
.
The harbor was also a key point for military control of the region.
Even the earliest settlers created fortifications at
Old Point Comfort by 1610 against
potential attacks by ships of Spanish or other unfriendly European
forces.
Important conflicts of the
American Revolutionary War
involved Norfolk and
Craney Island (at
the mouth of the
Elizabeth
River in Portsmouth). It was at Norfolk where the last Royal
Governor of the Virginia Colony,
Lord Dunmore, departed
mainland Virginia for the last time.
The first naval action of the
War of
1812 took place on 8 July 1812, when the
Bermuda sloop, HMS Whiting, its crew oblivious
to the US declaration of war, lowered anchor in Hampton Roads. As
its captain was being rowed ashore, the
Royal
Naval vessel was seized by the American privateer
Dash, which happened to be leaving port.
Under the
new United States government, by the 1830s, the entrance from
Chesapeake Bay was defended by
Fort
Monroe
, built by the U.S. Army beginning in
1819 on Old Point Comfort, and by
Fort Wool, built as Fort Calhoun in 1829,
on a small island called the Rip Raps near
the middle of the channel (and now adjacent to one of the manmade
islands of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel
). Much work in the building of these
fortresses in the early 19th century was done by a 24-year old
engineer in the U.S. Army, a Lieutenant named
Robert E. Lee

Battle of Hampton Roads
During the
American Civil War
(1861-1865), the famous
Battle
of Hampton Roads between the first American
ironclad warships, the
USS Monitor and the
CSS Virginia took place off
Sewell's Point, on March 8-9, 1862. That
battle was inconclusive, but later in 1862, Union forces took
control of Hampton Roads, Norfolk, and the lower James River.
However,
their efforts to take the Confederate capital of
Richmond
via the James River with their vastly superior Navy
were thwarted by a strong Confederate battery position high above a
bend in the river about below Richmond at Drewry's Bluff.
Fort
Monroe was the launching place for Union General George McClellan's massive 1862 Peninsula Campaign, a land campaign of
many months which began at Fort Monroe and advanced up the Virginia
Peninsula
, with a Siege at Yorktown and another battle at
Williamsburg before the Union Army almost literally reached the
gates of Richmond, ending at the Chickahominy River
within earshot of the city's church bells,
according to the journals of Union soldiers. However, the
Confederates mounted a credible defense of their capital city, and
McClellan's campaign failed to capture Richmond, ending in the
Seven Days Battles, during which
the Union Army withdrew, effectively extending the War for almost
three more years.
During the
American Civil War
(1861~1865), after the efforts of
Francis P. Blair (Sr.), the Confederate president
Jefferson Davis sent three Peace
Commissioners in an effort to negotiate for peace.
This unsuccessful
attempt at peace lasted for four hours, and at the end of the
Conference, the commissioners returned to Richmond
.
Beginning
in 1861, some of the former slaves found
refuge in a camp near Fort Monroe
, which remained in Union hands throughout the
War. There, the commander, Union Army General
Benjamin F. Butler, a
lawyer by
training, declared them to be
"Contraband of war". On that
legal basis, Union forces refused to return them to Confederate
owners as would have been the practice even in many "free states"
before Virginia seceded and declared itself a foreign power. Soon,
word spread, and many slaves were understandably anxious to become
"contraband."
Although many of the "contraband" men at Hampton and elsewhere
during the War volunteered and became part of the
United States Colored Troops
(USCT), others and the women and children grew in increasing
numbers near Fort Monroe in
Elizabeth City County. From
the wood and materials salvaged from the remains of the Town of
Hampton, which had been burned earlier by retreating Confederates,
they built the
Grand Contraband
Camp, near, but outside the protective walls of the Army base.
It was the first self-contained
African
American community in the United States.
Close by,
was (and still is) the Emancipation
Oak, on the grounds of the school for them which grew to become
Hampton
University
. Beginning as a
normal school founded to train teachers,
Hampton University was established by church groups and former
Union Army officers.
Early educators of the era included
Mary
Smith Peake and former Union Army General
Samuel Chapman Armstrong, who was
himself the son of missionaries, and had commanded a USCT force
during the War. Among the earlier students was a young former slave
named
Booker T. Washington, who became a famed African-American educator and was the first
head of present-day Tuskegee University
. The Emancipation Oak is part of the
official logo of the modern city of Hampton.
The
Jamestown Exposition for
the 300th anniversary of the 1607 founding of
Jamestown was held at
Sewell's Point in a rural section of
Norfolk County in 1907.
President
Theodore Roosevelt
arrived by water in the harbor of Hampton Roads, as did other
notable persons such as
Mark Twain and
Henry Huttleston Rogers, who both
arrived aboard the latter's steam yacht
Kanawha. A major naval display was
featured, and the U.S.
Great White
Fleet made an appearance. The leaders of the U.S. Navy
apparently did not fail to note the ideal harbor conditions, as was
later proved.
Beginning
in 1917, as the United States became involved in World War I under President Woodrow Wilson, formerly rural Sewell's Point became the site of what grew
to become the largest Naval Base in the world which was established
by the United States Navy and is
now known as the Naval Station Norfolk
.
Twice in
the 20th century, families of mostly African American heritage were displaced in
entire communities when land along the northern side of the
Peninsula
primarily in York County
west of Yorktown was taken in large tracts for
military use during World War I and
World War II, creating the present-day
U.S. Naval Weapons Station
Yorktown
, which includes Cheatham Annex, and a former
Seabee base which became Camp Peary
.
Communities including "the
Reservation"
, Halstead's
Point, Penniman, Bigler's Mill, and Magruder were all lost and
absorbed into the large military bases.
Although
some left the area entirely, many of the displaced families chose
to relocate nearby to Grove
, an
unincorporated town in southeastern James City
County
where many generations of some of those families
now reside. From a population estimated at only 37 in 1895,
Grove had grown to an estimated 1,100 families by the end of the
20th century. (To its north, Grove actually borders the Naval
Weapons Station property and on its extreme east, a portion of the
U.S.
Army's land at Fort Eustis
extends across Skiffe's Creek, although there is no
direct access to either base).
Colonial Williamsburg
A dream of one Episcopalian priest to save his 18th century church
building was to expand to create the world's largest
living museum.
Replacing Jamestown at the end of the
17th century, Williamsburg
had been capital of the Colony and the new State of
Virginia from 1699-1780. After the capital moved to Richmond
in 1780, Williamsburg became a quieter and sometimes described as
"sleepy" small town.
It saw some action during the Battle of
Williamsburg
of the 1862 Peninsula Campaign during the Civil
War. However, it was not located along any major waterway
and did not have railroad access until 1881. Perhaps due to the
secure inland location originally known as
Middle Plantation, for Williamsburg,
growth and great expansion of commerce in the 19th century did not
occur as rapidly as in many other Virginia cities.
The main activities
were the College of William and Mary
and Eastern State
Hospital, each historic institutions in their own right.
In addition to the city's historic past, quite a few buildings of
antiquity from the 18th century were still extant, although time
was taking a toll by the early 20th century.
The Reverend Dr.
W.A.R. Goodwin of Bruton Parish Church
initially had wanted merely to save his historic
church building. This he accomplished by 1907.
He later served in
Rochester,
New York
for many years. Upon returning to
Williamsburg in 1923, he began to realize that many of the other
colonial-era buildings also remained, but were in deteriorating
condition, and their continued longevity was at risk.
Goodwin dreamed of a much larger restoration along the lines of
what he had accomplished with his historic church. A cleric of
modest means, he sought support and financing from a number of
sources before successfully drawing the interests and major
financial support of
Standard Oil heir
and
philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. and his wife
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller.
The
result of their combined efforts was the creation of Colonial
Williamsburg
, which included a restoration of the Wren Building
at the College of William and Mary
and a change of much of the downtown Williamsburg
area into a Historic Area of restored and replica buildings and
surrounds to celebrate the patriots and the early history of
America.
By the 1930s, Colonial Williamsburg had become the centerpiece of
the
Historic Triangle of Colonial
Virginia.
These were, of course, Jamestown, where the
colony started, Williamsburg, and Yorktown
, where independence from Great
Britain
was won. The three points were joined by the
U.S.
National
Park Service's Colonial Parkway
, a remarkable accomplishment built over a period of
27 years. The Historic Triangle area of the Hampton Roads
region became one of the largest tourist attractions in the entire
world.
In Dr. Goodwin's words: "Williamsburg is Jamestown continued, and
Yorktown is Williamsburg vindicated."
Other notable Hampton Roads "firsts"
America's first free public schools, the Syms and Eaton free
schools (later combined as
Syms-Eaton
Academy), were established in Hampton in 1634 and 1659
respectively. The Syms-Eaton Academy was later renamed Hampton
Academy and in 1852 became part of the public school system, thus
Hampton High
School lays claim to being the oldest public school in the
United States. The trust fund created from the Syms and Eaton
donations has remained intact since the 17th century and was
incorporated into support for the Hampton public school
system.
In 1957,
the Hampton
Roads Bridge-Tunnel
was the first bridge-tunnel complex in the world, to be
followed by the area's much longer Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel in
1963.
In the
1960s, the first astronauts of Project Mercury trained at the NASA
facility
adjacent to Hampton's Langley Air Force Base
. Local features including Mercury
Boulevard
commemorate this fact.
Government
The area consists of ten independent cities and seven counties.
Each city is independent and has the powers and responsibilities of
a county, including maintaining courts, schools, and a sheriff.
Some cities do share these responsibilities with an adjoining
county. These localities do come together to consult on regional
issues.
The military has a large presence in the region.
Area military
facilities (alphabetically) include Camp Peary
in York County, Fleet
Training Center Dam Neck
in Virginia Beach, Fort Eustis
in Newport News, Langley Air Force Base
in Hampton, Naval
Amphibious Base Little Creek
in Virginia Beach, Fort Monroe
in Hampton (scheduled to be closed by 2011),
Norfolk
Naval Shipyard
in Portsmouth (not to be confused with Portsmouth
Naval Shipyard
, in Kittery
, Maine
), Naval
Station Norfolk
, Naval Air Station Oceana
in Virginia Beach, the Coast Guard Integrated
Support Command Portsmouth.Saint Julian Creek Naval
Depot Annex in Chesapeake, Fort Story
in Virginia Beach, and Naval
Weapons Station Yorktown
in York County.
The federal government also has two major research laboratories
there. NASA/Langley is the home of a variety of aircraft-related
research, including several one-of-a-kind wind tunnels. It is on
the northeast edge of Hampton, near Poquoson.
Also, the Department
of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator
Facility
(known as 'Jefferson Lab') conducts cutting edge
physics research in Newport
News
; the lab hosts the Continuous Electron Beam
Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) and a kilowatt-class Free-Electron
Laser.
Virginia defines regional planning districts by law. Generally,
members are independent cities and counties;
incorporated towns are located within
counties in Virginia. Localities around the state are allowed to
belong to more than one Planning District, as their constituents
may have interests which crossover individual planning district
boundaries.
The Hampton Roads Planning District Commission (HRPDC) currently
includes 16 cities and counties, all in Virginia, and represents
over 1.6 million people.
The 16 jurisdictions include: the Cities of Chesapeake, Franklin,
Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Poquoson, Portsmouth, Suffolk,
Virginia Beach, and Williamsburg, and the Counties of Gloucester,
Isle of Wight, James City, Southampton, Surry, and York. It is
noteworthy that there are incorporated towns located in three of
the counties within the district (Isle of Wight, Southampton and
Surry).
Geography
The
water area known as Hampton Roads
is a wide channel through which the waters of the James River, Nansemond River, and Elizabeth River pass (between
Old Point Comfort to the north and
Sewell's Point to the south) into the
Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean
.
The
region has extensive natural areas, including of Atlantic Ocean and
Chesapeake Bay beaches, the Great Dismal Swamp
, picturesque rivers, state parks, wildlife refuges,
and botanical gardens. Inland from the bay, the region includes
Lake
Drummond
, one of
only two natural lakes found in Virginia, and
miles of waterfront property along the various rivers and
waterways.
The
land area which constitutes "Hampton Roads"
varies depending upon perspective and purpose.
Most of the land area
of Hampton Roads is geographically divided into 2 smaller regions:
the eastern portion of the Virginia Peninsula
(the Peninsula) and South Hampton Roads (locally known as
"the Southside"), which are separated by the harbor. When
speaking of communities of Hampton Roads, virtually all sources
(including the three discussed in the following paragraphs) include
the seven major cities, two smaller ones, and three counties within
those two subregions.
In addition, the
Middle Peninsula
counties of Gloucester and Mathews, while not part of the
geographical Hampton Roads area, are included in the vast
metropolitan region's population.
Also, a small portion of northeastern
North Carolina (Currituck County
) is included in the region's statistics.
Due to a
peculiarity in the drawing of the Virginia-North Carolina border,
Knott's
Island
in that county is connected to Virginia by land,
but is only accessible to other parts of North Carolina across
waterways via a ferry system.
Each of the following current cities, counties and towns is
included by at least one of the three organizations that define
"Hampton Roads"
Hampton is a Hampton Roads community.
The Hampton Roads area consists of nine independent cities (which
are not part of any county).
Chesapeake
, Norfolk
, Portsmouth
, Suffolk
, and Virginia Beach
cover the Southside of Hampton Roads while Hampton
, Newport News
, Poquoson
, and Williamsburg
reside on the Peninsula. Franklin
borders Suffolk but the Census Bureau does not
consider it as a part of the metro area.
The metro
area has one county in North Carolina, Currituck
. The remaining counties, in Virginia, include
Isle of
Wight
and Surry
on the Southside, James
City
and York
on the Virginia Peninsula, and Gloucester
and Mathews
on the Middle Peninsula. While Southampton
is adjacent to Surry, Isle of Wight, and the City
of Suffolk, the Census Bureau does not consider it part of the
metro area.
Seven
towns reside in the metro area including Claremont
in Surry County, Courtland
in Southampton County, Dendron
in Surry County, Smithfield
in Isle of Wight County, Surry
, Surry
County's seat, Windsor
in Isle of Wight County, and Boykins
in Southampton County.
Other
unincorporated towns and communities not in cities include Gloucester
Courthouse
and Gloucester Point
in Gloucester County, Isle of Wight Courthouse,
Rushmere
, Rescue, Carrollton
, Benns Church
, and Walters
in Isle of Wight County, Yorktown
, Grafton, Seaford
, and Tabb
in York
County, Jamestown, Ford's Colony, Grove
, Lightfoot
, Toano
, and
Norge in James City County, Moyock
, Knotts Island
, and Currituck
in Currituck County, North
Carolina.
The
Hampton Roads MSA has a population of about 1.7 million and is the
fifth largest metropolitan area in the southeastern USA after
Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL
MSA
, Atlanta-Sandy
Springs-Marietta, GA MSA, the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL
MSA
, and Orlando-Kissimmee, FL
MSA.
Transportation

Ferry Between Norfolk and
Portsmouth
Historically, from the earliest times, the harbor was the key to
the Hampton Roads area's growth, both on land and in water-related
activities and events. Ironically, the harbor and its tributary
waterways were (and still are) both important transportation
conduits and obstacles to other land-based commerce and travel.
Yet, the community leaders learned to overcome them.
In modern times, the region has faced increasing transportation
challenges as it has become largely urbanized, with additional
traffic needs. In the 21st century, the conflicts between traffic
on vital waterways and land-based travel continue to present the
area's leaders with extraordinary transportation challenges, both
for additional capacity, and as the existing infrastructure, much
of it originally built with
toll revenues,
has aged without an adequate source of funding to repair or build
replacements.
The now-closed Kings
Highway Bridge
in Suffolk
and the Jordan Bridge
closed by neighboring Chesapeake
in 2008 were each built in the 1920s. These
were considered locally prime examples of this situation.
In 2007, the new
Hampton Roads
Transportation Authority (HRTA) was formed under a
controversial state law to levy various additional taxes to
generate funding for major regional transportation projects,
including a long-sought and costly so-called third crossing of the
harbor of Hampton Roads. As of March 2008, although its projects
were considered to be needed, the agency's future was in some
question while its controversial sources of funding were being
reconsidered in light of a Virginia Supreme Court decision.
Newport News/Williamsburg International
Airport
, located in Newport News, and Norfolk
International Airport
, in Norfolk, both cater to passengers from Hampton
Roads. The primary airport for the Virginia Peninsula is the
Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport. The Airport is
experiencing a 4th year of record, double-digit growth, making it
one of the fastest growing airports in the country. In January
2006, the airport reported having served 1,058,839
passengers.
Norfolk International Airport
, serves the region. The airport is
located near Chesapeake Bay, along the city limits of Norfolk
and Virginia Beach
. Seven airlines provide nonstop services to
twenty five destinations. ORF had 3,703,664 passengers take off or
land at its facility and 68,778,934 pounds of cargo were processed
through its facilities.
The Chesapeake Regional Airport
provides general aviation services and is
located on the other side of the Hampton Roads Harbor.
Amtrak serves the region with three trains a
day to its Williamsburg and Newport News stations.
The line runs west
along the Virginia
Peninsula
to Richmond
and points beyond. Connecting buses are
available to Norfolk and Virginia Beach. A high speed rail
connection at Richmond to both the
Northeast Corridor and the
Southeast High Speed Rail
Corridor are also under study.
Intercity bus service is provided by
Greyhound Lines (Carolina Trailways)
with bus stations in Newport News, Hampton, and Norfolk.
Transportation within the Seven Cities of Hampton Roads is served
by a regional bus service,
Hampton
Roads Transit. Local routes serving Williamsburg, James City
County, and upper York County is operated by
Williamsburg Area
Transport.
A
light rail service to be known as
The Tide is under construction in
Norfolk. It is set to begin service in 2010. Operated by Hampton
Roads Transit, it will become the first major light rail service in
the region. It is projected to have a daily ridership of between
7,130 to 11,400 passengers a day upon completion. There has also
been a light rail study in the Hampton - Newport News areas.
The Hampton Roads area has an extensive network of
Interstate Highways, including the
Interstate 64, the major east-west
route to and from the area, and its spurs and bypasses of
I-264,
I-464,
I-564,
and
I-664.
The
Hampton Roads Beltway
extends on a long loop through the region, crossing the harbor on
two toll-free
bridge-tunnel
facilities.
These crossings are the Hampton
Roads Bridge-Tunnel
between Phoebus
in Hampton and Willoughby Spit
in Norfolk and the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial
Bridge-Tunnel
between Newport News and Suffolk.The Beltway
connects with another Interstate highway and three arterial U.S.
Highways
at Bower's
Hill
near the northeastern edge of the Great Dismal
Swamp
. Other major east-west routes are
U.S. Highway
58,
U.S. Highway 60, and
U.S. Highway
460. The major north-south routes are
U.S. Highway
13 and
U.S. Highway 17.
There are
also two other tunnels in the area, the Midtown Tunnel, and the Downtown
Tunnel
joining Portsmouth and Norfolk, as well as the
-long Chesapeake Bay
Bridge-Tunnel, a toll facility which links the region with
Virginia's Eastern Shore
which carries US 13. The
original Downtown Tunnel in conjunction with the
Berkley Bridge were considered a single
bridge and tunnel complex when completed in 1952, perhaps
stimulating the innovative
bridge-tunnel design using
man-made islands when the Hampton Roads
Bridge-Tunnel was planned, first opening in 1957. The
George P. Coleman Memorial Bridge is
a major
toll bridge connecting U.S.
Highway
17 on the Peninsula
at Yorktown
with Virginia's Middle
Peninsula region. Another major crossing of waterways is the
James River
Bridge
, carrying US 17
US 258, and SR 32 from Newport News to Isle of
Wight County
.
The region is notable in that it has 2 types of public transport
services via
ferrys. A passenger ferry is
operated on the Elizabeth River between downtown areas of Norfolk
and Portsmouth by HRT.
The Jamestown Ferry
(also known as the Jamestown-Scotland Ferry) is an
automobile ferry system on the James River connecting Jamestown in James City
County
with Scotland in Surry County
. It carries
State Route 31. Operated by
VDOT, it is
the only 24-hour state-run ferry operation in Virginia and has over
90 employees. It operates four ferryboats, the
Pocahontas,
the
Williamsburg, the
Surry, and the
Virginia. The facility is toll-free.
Education
Hampton Roads' individual cities and counties administer their own
K-12 education for their localities. In addition to public
education, area residents have many private and religious school
options.
The area also has a number of higher education options for area
residents.
The College of William and Mary
in Williamsburg was founded in 1693 and has served
as the second oldest institution of higher education in the United
States. Old Dominion University
, founded as the Norfolk
Division of the College of William and Mary
in 1930, became an independent institution in 1962
and now offers degrees in 68 undergraduate and 95 (60 masters/35
doctoral) graduate degree programs. Norfolk's Eastern
Virginia Medical School
, founded as a community medical school by the
surrounding jurisdictions in 1973, is noted for its research into
reproductive medicine and is located in the region's major medical
complex in the Ghent district.
Norfolk
State University
is the largest majority black university in
Virginia and offers degrees in a wide variety of liberal arts. Virginia Wesleyan College is a
small private
liberal arts college on
the border of Norfolk and Virginia Beach.
Hampton
University
, a private HBCU university, has a long history
serving Hampton. Christopher Newport
University
serves as a public university and is located in
Newport News.Regent
University
, a private university founded by Christian
Evangelist and Leader Pat Robertson
which has historically focused on graduate education but is
attempting to establish an undergraduate program as well.
Atlantic
University
, associated with the Edgar Cayce organization, the
Association for Research and
Enlightenment
(ARE), offers M.A. degrees in Transpersonal
Studies, with many New Age subjects thanks to its Edgar Cayce
link.

Crim Dell in the heart of William
& Mary's wooded campus
Area residents also have options for training for technical
professions.
ECPI College of
Technology has campuses in Virginia Beach and Newport News
while
ITT Technical
Institute has a campus in Norfolk. Bryant and Stratton College
has a campus in Virginia Beach's Town Center. The Newport News
Shipbuilding's Apprentice School offers a two year program in
mechanical fields. Graduates from the Apprentice School go on to
work at the Newport News Shipbuilding.
Three institutions in the Virginia Community College System offer
affordable higher education options for area residents.
Tidewater Community College in
Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, and Portsmouth,
Paul D. Camp Community College in
Suffolk, Franklin, and Smithfield, and
Thomas Nelson Community
College in Hampton and Williamsburg offer two-year degrees and
specialized training programs.
Economy

Hampton Roads from space
Hampton Roads has become known as the "world's greatest natural
harbor". The port is located only from open ocean on one of the
world's deepest, natural ice-free harbors. Since 1989, Hampton
Roads has been the mid-Atlantic leader in U.S. waterborne foreign
commerce and is ranked second nationally behind the Port of South
Louisiana based on export tonnage. When import and export tonnage
are combined, the Port of Hampton Roads ranks as the third largest
port in the country (following the ports of New Orleans/South
Louisiana and Houston. In 1996, Hampton Roads was ranked ninth
among major U.S. ports in vessel port calls with approximately
2,700. In addition, this port is the U.S. leader in coal exports.
The
coal loading facilities in the Port of
Hampton Roads are able to load in excess of 65 million tons
annually, giving the port the largest, most efficient and modern
coal loading facilities in the world.
It is little surprise therefore that the Hampton Roads region's
economic base is largely port-related, including shipbuilding, ship
repair, naval installations, cargo transfer and storage, and
manufacturing related to the processing of imports and exports.
Associated with the ports' military role are almost 50,000 federal
civilian employees.
The
harbor of Hampton Roads is an important highway of commerce,
especially for the cities of Norfolk
, Portsmouth
, and Newport News
.
Northrop
Grumman Newport News
(formerly Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock
Company), the world's largest shipyard, is
located a short distance up the James River. In Portsmouth, a few
miles up the Elizabeth River, the historic Norfolk
Naval Shipyard
is located. BAE Systems, formerly known as
NORSHIPCO, operates from sites in the City of Norfolk. There are
also several smaller shipyards, numerous docks and terminals.

Northrop Grumman Newport News
Shipbuilding
Massive
coal piers and loading facilities
were established in the late 19th and early 20th century by the
Chesapeake and Ohio
Railway (C&O),
Norfolk and Western Railway
(N&W), and
Virginian Railway
(VGN).
The latter two were predecessors of the
Norfolk Southern Railway, a
Class I railroad which has its
headquarters in Norfolk, and continues to export coal from a large
facility at Lambert's
Point
on the Elizabeth River. CSX Transportation now serves the former
C&O facility at Newport News.
(The VGN's former coal facility at
Sewell's Point has been gone since
the 1960s, and the property is now part of the expansive Norfolk Navy
Base
).
Hampton Roads is also a chief rendezvous of the
United States Navy. The Hampton Roads
area has the largest concentration of military bases and facilities
of any metropolitan area in the world.
The area is home to
the Allied Command
Transformation, which is the only major military command of the
North Atlantic Treaty
Organization
(NATO
).
Langley Air
Force Base
is home to Air Combat
Command (ACC). The Norfolk Navy Base
is located at Sewell's
Point near the mouth, on the site used for the tercentennial
Jamestown Exposition in
1907. For a width of the Federal government during 1902
through 1905 increased its minimum depth at low water from to , and
the channel has now been dredged to a depth of in some
places.

NASA Langley Research Center
NASA
's Langley
Research Center
, located on the Peninsula adjacent to Langley Air
Force Base
in Hampton, is home to scientific and aerospace
technology research. The Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator
Facility
(commonly known as Jefferson Labs) is located
nearby in Newport News.
The area's experiences with commercial and retail centers began
early in 1918. Afton Square, located in the
Cradock naval community of Portsmouth, was the first
planned shopping center in the USA and has served as template for
future developments throughout the nation.
Hampton Roads experienced tremendous growth during and after World
War II. In the 1950s, a trend in retail was the
shopping center, a group of stores along a
common sidewalk adjacent to off-street parking, usually in a
suburban location.

Lynnhaven Mall, opened in 1981, has
1.4 million square feet and 180 stores.
In 1959, one of the largest on the east coast of the USA was opened
at the northeast corner of Military Highway and Virginia Beach
Boulevard on property which had formally been used as an airfield.
The new
JANAF Shopping Center,
located in Norfolk, featured acres of free parking and dozens of
stores. Backed by retired military personnel, the name JANAF was an
acronym for Joint Army Navy Air Force.
During the 1950s and early-1960s, other shopping centers in Hampton
Roads were developed, such as Wards Corner Shopping Center,
Downtown Plaza Shopping Center and Southern Shopping Center in
Norfolk; Mid-City Shopping Center in Portsmouth; Hilltop Shopping
Center (now known as
The Shops at
Hilltop) in Virginia Beach; Riverdale Shopping Center in
Hampton and the Warwick-Denbigh Shopping Center in Newport
News.
In the late-1960s, a new type of shopping center came to Hampton
Roads: the Indoor
Shopping Mall. In
1965, South Hampton Roads broke ground on its first shopping mall
in Virginia Beach, known as
Pembroke
Mall. The mall opened in 1966, and became Hampton Road's newest
indoor shopping destination.
The Virginia Peninsula
had its first indoor shopping mall in 1973, with
Coliseum
Mall
. Coliseum Mall drew so much traffic from
Interstate 64, that a towering
flyover was built at the Mercury Boulevard
and Coliseum Drive intersection, to accommodate eastbound mall
traffic, from the Mercury Boulevard interchange.
Coliseum Mall was
demolished to make way for the open air mixed-use development
Peninsula
Town Center
. Also in the 1970s,
Tower Mall was built in Portsmouth. In Norfolk,
Military Circle Mall on
Military Highway was built across
Virginia Beach Boulevard
from the large JANAF Shopping Center with its own high-rise hotel
right in the center. In 1981,
Greenbrier
Mall gave Chesapeake a shopping mall of its own as well, and
Virginia Beach got the massive Lynnhaven Mall the same year.

MacArthur Center, opened in 1999, has
1.1 million square feet and 140 stores.
MacArthur
Center
opened in March 1999, which made downtown Norfolk a
prime shoppers destination, with the region's first Nordstrom
department store anchor. MacArthur Center is
compared to other downtown malls, such as Baltimore's Harborplace
, Indianapolis' Circle Centre
Mall, Atlanta's Lenox Square
Mall and most comparably to The
Fashion Centre at Pentagon City
near Washington, D.C.
, in Arlington, Virginia
.
Currently, Virginia Beach's Lynnhaven
Mall
is the region's largest shopping center with nearly
180 stores, and is one of the region's biggest tourist draws, with
the Virginia Beach oceanfront, Colonial Williamsburg
, Busch Gardens Williamsburg
: The Old Country and MacArthur Center.
For a long time, the indoor shopping malls were seen as largely
competitive with small shopping centers and traditional downtown
type areas. However, in the 1990s and since, the "
big-box stores" on the Peninsula and Southside, such
as Wal-mart, Home Depot, and Target have been creating a new
competitive atmosphere for the shopping malls of Hampton Roads.

Patrick Henry Mall, opened in 1987,
has 700,000 square feet and 120 stores
Several older malls such as Pembroke and Military Circle have since
their grand openings have been renovated several, and others have
been closed and torn down. Newmarket North Mall is now
NetCenter, a business center.
Coliseum
Mall
, in Hampton, is being redeveloped as Peninsula
Town Center
in a new style, in step with the latest commercial
real estate trend: the nationwide establishment of "lifestyle centers". Additional
malls which have closed include
Mercury
Mall in Hampton (converted to Mercury Plaza Shopping Center in
the mid-1980s, then completely torn down in 2001), and
Tower Mall in Portsmouth (Built in the early
1970s, then torn down in 2001).
America's First Region
In late 2006, the Hampton Roads Partnership, a non-profit
organization representing 17 localities (ten cities, six counties,
and one town), all local universities and major military commands
as well as leading businesses in southeastern Virginia, commenced a
campaign aimed at branding land area of Hampton Roads as "America's
First Region".
The new title is based on events in 1607 when English
Captain Christopher Newport's three
ships - the
Susan Constant,
Godspeed, and
Discovery landed at
Cape Henry along the Atlantic Coast at
Cape Henry in what is today Virginia Beach. After
18 days of exploring the area, the ships and their crews arrived at
Jamestown Island where they
established the first English speaking settlement to survive in the
New World on 14 May 1607.
Because the region's east-west boundaries (now the City of Virginia
Beach and James City County) have not changed since 1607, the
Partnership felt justified in labeling Hampton Roads "America's
First Region". It unveiled the new brand before 800 people at the
annual meeting of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce on
December 13, 2006. A video shown that afternoon
included endorsements from mayors and county board of supervisors
chairs representing Hampton, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Williamsburg
and James City County as well as the
Governor of Virginia,
Timothy Kaine.
The mission of Hampton Roads Economic Development Alliance (HREDA)
is a non-profit organization dedicated to business
attraction—marketing the Hampton Roads region as the preferred
location for business investment and expansion. HREDA represents
the cities of Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Poquoson,
Portsmouth, Suffolk, Virginia Beach, Williamsburg and Franklin, as
well as the counties of Gloucester, James City, Isle of Wight, York
and Southampton County.
Flag
Hampton Roads flag, adopted 1998
In 1998, a flag representing the Hampton Roads region was adopted.
The design of the flag was created by a contest. The winner,
sixteen year-old Andrew J. Wall of
Frank W. Cox High School in Virginia Beach,
raised the new regional flag for the first time on the mast of a
ship moored in the harbor.
As conceived by student Andrew Wall and embellished by the
selection committee, his flag is highly symbolic:
- The ring of sixteen white stars stands for the cities and
counties that comprise the region of Hampton Roads. The blue upper
panel refers to the sea and sky, recalling the first European
settlers at Jamestown in 1607, the first battle between ironclad
ships in 1862, the importance of shipbuilding and ship repair in
the area, as well as maritime commerce, fishing, recreational
boating, and the major military and government installations around
the area’s shores. Agriculture, the environment, tourism, industry,
and a healthy quality of life are suggested by the lower panel of
green. The wavy white central band with three crests suggests past,
present, and future. The wave also recalls the surf and sand dunes
of the area as seen from the sea. Water is the central theme. It
touches all the components and binds them together.
Culture
Virginia's Historic Triangle
The area is most often associated with the larger
American South. People who have grown up in
the Hampton Roads area have a unique
Tidewater accent which sounds different
than a stereotypical
Southern
accent. Vowels have a longer pronunciation than in a regular
southern accent.
Historic Triangle
The
Historic Triangle is located on
the Virginia
Peninsula
and includes the colonial communities of Jamestown, Williamsburg
, and Yorktown
, with many restored attractions linked by the
Colonial
Parkway
.
The
National Park Service's
Colonial
Parkway
joins the three popular attractions of Colonial
Virginia with a scenic and bucolic roadway carefully shielded from
views of commercial development. This helps visitors
mentally return to the past, and there are often views of
wildlife and
waterfowl.
This two lane roadway is the best (but not quickest) way to move
between the three points. Near the James River and
York River ends of the parkway, there are several
pull-offs, where some families allow their children to feed bread
to the seagulls. (Warning: No trucks are allowed).
For an
even better experience, approach the area from the south by water
from Surry
County
with a ride aboard one of the Jamestown
Ferrys
, which include the Pocahontas and
Williamsburg. As passengers cross, they can walk
about the boat or go up to an enclosed viewing level with
restrooms. Weather and daylight permitting, passengers usually see
Jamestown Island much as the first
colonists may have approached it. In fact, the replicas of
Christopher Newport's the three tiny
ships,
Susan Constant,
Godspeed, and
Discovery are docked near the northern ferry landing at
Glass House Point. Both the
Jamestown Ferry and Colonial Parkway are toll-free.
The first permanent English settlement in the New World which was
established at
Jamestown in
1607. The 350th anniversary celebration at
Jamestown Festival Park in 1957 was
so popular, tourism has been continuously increasing ever since.
The 400th anniversary is being celebrated with an 18-month long
celebration called
Jamestown
2007.
Today, at Jamestown, you can visit recreations of an
American Indian
village and colonial fort, and archaeological sites where current
work is underway by
archeologists from
the
Jamestown Rediscovery
project, with recently recovered archaeological artifacts in a new
display building. Replicas of the three ships,
Susan Constant,
Godspeed, and
Discovery are docked
nearby.
The two
major attractions, which are complementary to each other, are the
state-sponsored Jamestown Settlement
near the entrance to Jamestown Island, and
the National Parks Service's Historic Jamestowne
, on Jamestown Island itself.
In 1699,
the first capital of Virginia was moved to Middle Plantation at the suggestion of
students from the College of William and Mary
(established 1693). It was soon renamed
to Williamsburg
, but became a largely forgotten little town after
the capital was moved to Richmond
in 1780. Largely due to the 20th century
preservation efforts of the Reverend Dr.
W.A.R. Goodwin,
rector of Bruton
Parish Church
and the generosity of Standard Oil heir John D. Rockefeller Jr., today Colonial
Williamsburg
is a large living
museum of early American life. It has dozens of restored
and recreated buildings and reenactors. It is one of the most
popular tourist destinations in the world. The Visitor's Center
(right off the Colonial Parkway) features a short movie and is an
excellent place to start (and leave automobiles, which are
restricted from the restored area, where wheelchair-accessible
shuttle
bus service is provided).
The
third point of the triangle is Yorktown
where General Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington in 1781, ending the
American Revolution.
There are two large visitor centers, battlefield drives, and a
waterfront area.
Notwithstanding the amazingly successful efforts to provide a
non-commercial atmosphere at the three Historic Triangle areas (and
on the Colonial Parkway between them), there are many hotels,
motels, campgrounds, restaurants, shops and stores, gasoline
stations, and amusements close by.
Attractions
There's also a wealth of other points of history to explore in the
Hampton Roads area.
Recovered artifacts from the
USS
Monitor are displayed at the
Mariners' Museum, one of the more notable
museums of its type in the world.
The
Museum’s collection totals approximately 35,000 artifacts, of which
approximately one-third are paintings and two-thirds are
three-dimensional objects. The scope of
the Museum's collection is international. Included are 10 permanent galleries, changing and
traveling exhibits, and virtual galleries available through the
museum website. The collection of over
600,000 prints and 35,000 maritime artifacts is international in
scope and includes miniature ship models, scrimshaw, maritime
paintings, decorative arts, carved figureheads, and working steam
engines.
The Virginia
War Museum
covers American military history. The Museum's
collection includes, weapons, vehicles, artifacts, uniforms and
posters from various periods of American history.
Highlights of the
Museum's collection include a section of the Berlin Wall
and the outer wall from Dachau
Concentration Camp
.
The
Peninsula Fine Arts
Center contains a rotating gallery of art exhibits. The Center
also maintains a permanent "Hands On For Kids" gallery designed for
children and families to interact in what the Center describes as
"a fun, educational environment that encourages participation with
art materials and concepts."
The
Chrysler
Museum of Art
, located in the Ghent
district, is the region's foremost art museum and is considered
by the New York Times to be
the finest in the state. Of particular note is the extensive
glass collection and American
neoclassical marble sculptures.
Nauticus
, the National Maritime Center, opened on the
downtown waterfront in 1994. It features hands-on exhibits,
interactive theaters,
aquaria, digital
high-definition films and an extensive variety of educational
programs.
Since 2000, Nauticus has been home to the
battleship USS
Wisconsin
, the last battleship to be built in the United
States. It served briefly in
World
War II and later in the
Korean and
Gulf Wars.The General
Douglas MacArthur Memorial, located in the
19th century Norfolk court house and city hall in downtown,
contains the tombs of the late General and his wife, a museum and a
vast research library, personal belongings (including his famous
corncob pipe) and a short film that chronicles the life of the
famous
General of
the Army.
Two former Civil War forts reside on the coast or in the Hampton
Roads harbor.
The Casemate Museum (where former Confederate President Jefferson Davis was imprisoned) is at
Fort
Monroe
in the historic Phoebus
area at Old Point
Comfort in Hampton
. Fort Wool is
located in the middle of the harbor and harbor tours departing from
Hampton
and Newport News
provide access to Fort
Wool and Northrop Grumman Newport News, the world's largest
shipyard.
NASA
Langley
Research Center
in
Hampton, the original training ground for the Mercury Seven, Gemini, and Apollo Astronauts. Visitors are able to
learn about the region's aviation history at the Virginia Air and Space Center
in Hampton
.
Other
area attractions include the USS
Cole in Norfolk
and the Children's Museum of Virginia
in Portsmouth
having one of the largest collection of model
electric trains and other toys. The Norfolk
Naval Shipyard
in Portsmouth
is one of the oldest shipyards and has the first
dry dock on display. The Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife
Refuge
(in Suffolk and Chesapeake) is accessed from
U.S. Route 17 in Chesapeake
. The Suffolk-Nansemond Museum is in the
restored Seaboard and
Virginian Railway passenger train
station in Suffolk
. The Isle of
Wight Museum is in Smithfield
and the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia
located in Virginia Beach features the significant art of our
time.
The Hampton Roads region has a thriving music scene, with a heavy
concentration thereof in the Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, and
Norfolk areas. Many clubs, venues, and festivals exist within the
region, all playing host to a wide variety of musical styles. There
are a few hundred bands that play routinely in the region, spanning
multiple genres.
In addition, plenty of well known acts have come from the area.
Some of the major rock/pop artists include
Bruce Hornsby,
Gary
"U.S." Bonds,
Juice Newton,
Mae,
Seven Mary Three,
Gene Vincent,
Keller
Williams, and
Steve Earle.
Ella Fitzgerald is the most recognizable
jazz musician from the area.
Robert Cray
and
Ruth Brown are both prominent blues
and R&B artists.
Tommy Newsom is
another famous jazz musician. Many prominent rap and hip hop
artists come from the area including
Chad
Hugo,
Clipse,
Magoo,
Missy
Elliott,
Nicole Wray,
Pharrell Williams,
Quan,
Teddy
Riley, and
Timbaland.
The region has a number of venues hosting live music and
performances.
Most notably, the Verizon Wireless Virginia Beach
Amphitheatre
in Virginia Beach (seating 20,000), the
nTelos Pavilion at
Harbor Center in Portsmouth (seating 7,500), Le Palais Royal Theatre at Busch
Gardens in Williamsburg (seating 5,600), and the Lake Matoaka Amphitheatre at
The
College of William & Mary
in Williamsburg (seating 1,700).
Parks and recreation
The
Norfolk
Botanical Garden
, opened in 1939, is a botanical garden and arboretum located near the Norfolk International
Airport. It is open year round.
The
Virginia
Zoological Park
, opened in
1900, is a zoo with hundreds of animals on
display, including the critically endangered Siberian Tiger and threatened White Rhino.
First
Landing State Park
and False Cape State Park
are both located in coastal areas in Virginia
Beach. Both offer camping facilities, cabins, and outdoor
recreation activities in addition to nature and history tours.
First Landing is the site of
Cape Henry
while False Cape is located at the southeastern end of Virginia
Beach.
Newport News Park is located in
the northern part of the city of Newport News. The city's golf
course also lies within the Park along with camping and outdoor
activities. There are over 30 miles (50 km) of trails in the
Newport News Park complex. The park has a 5.3 mile (8.5 km)
multi-use bike path. The park offers bicycle and helmet rental, and
requires helmet use by children under 14. Newport News Park also
offers an archery range, disc golf course, and an "aeromodel flying
field" for remote-controlled aircraft, complete with a 400 ft
(120 m) runway.
The region also has amusement parks which attract tourists and
locals alike.
Ocean Breeze
Waterpark, Shipwreck Golf, and Motor World are Virginia Beach's
amusement parks, which were formerly called Ocean Breeze Fun Park.
As separate parks, they provide miniature golf, go-karts, water
slides, pools, climbing wall, paintball area, and kiddie rides.
Busch
Gardens Williamsburg
and Water Country USA
are the major theme parks in
Williamsburg.
Sports, entertainment, and mass assembly venues
normal seating capacity in
parentheses
Collegiate and other indoor arenas
- Kaplan Arena at William & Mary
Hall
at The College of William &
Mary
– Williamsburg (10,300)
- Ted Constant Convocation
Center
at Old Dominion University
– Norfolk (9,650) sometimes known as the
Constant Convocation Center or "the Ted"
- Joseph G.
Echols Memorial Hall
at Norfolk State University
(8,500)
- Hampton Convocation Center
at Hampton University
(8,200)
- Robert
Freeman Center at Christopher Newport
University
– Newport News (6,000)
- Old Dominion
University Fieldhouse – Norfolk (5,955) (Torn down in
2007)
- Gills Gymnasium at Norfolk
State University
(4,000)
- Jerome H. Holland Hall at Hampton
University
(3,000)
- Anderson Field House at Fort Eustis
– Newport News (2,200)
- Jane P. Batten Student Center at Virginia Wesleyan College –
Virginia Beach (2,120)
Collegiate and other stadiums
- William "Dick" Price Stadium at Norfolk
State University (30,000) football
- Alvin H.
Foreman Field
at Old Dominion University – Norfolk (20,300)
football and field hockey
- Walter J.
Zable Stadium
at The College of William and Mary –
Williamsburg (15,279) football
- Samuel C.
Armstrong Stadium
at Hampton University (14,000)
football
- Norfolk Scope
- Norfolk (12,600) - Hockey, opened in
1971
- John B. Todd Stadium – Newport News (11,000)
football
- Joseph S.
Darling Memorial
Stadium – Hampton (8,000) football
- B. Herman Bailey Field – Yorktown (6,000) football
- Cooley Field - Williamsburg (3,000) football
- Old Dominion University Soccer Stadium – Norfolk (6,000)
- Union Kempsville Stadium – Virginia Beach (5,100) football
- Anheuser-Busch Field
at The College of William and Mary – Williamsburg
(4,450) soccer
- Pomoco Stadium at Christopher Newport University – Newport News
(4,200) football
- District Park Sports Complex – Williamsburg (4,000)
proposed
- Powhatan Stadium – Norfolk (4,000) - football, opened in fall
2006
- Bud Metheny Sports Complex at Old Dominion University – Norfolk
(3,000) baseball
- Marty L. Miller Baseball Field at Norfolk State University
(1,600)
- Joe Plumeri Park at The College of
William and Mary – Williamsburg (1,200) baseball
- Mark
McCormack-Betsy Nagelsen Tennis Center at The College of
William and Mary – Williamsburg
Convention centers
Auditoriums and performing arts theatres
Media
Two major
newspapers serve Hampton Roads:
The Virginian-Pilot in
the Southside, and
The Daily
Press on the Peninsula. Smaller publications include the
Williamsburg-James City County area's twice-weekly
Virginia Gazette (the state's oldest
newspaper), the weekly
New
Journal and Guide, and the
Smithfield Times which
publishes a weekly edition in the Isle of Wight County town of the
same name.
Hampton Roads Magazine is the region's only city and
lifestyle magazine. The publication is published ten times a year
and covers all of Hampton Roads, Williamsburg and the Eastern
Shore.
The Hampton Roads
designated
market area (DMA) is the 42nd largest in the U.S. with 712,790
homes (0.64% of the total U.S.).
The major network television affiliates
are WTKR-TV
3 (CBS), WAVY
10
(NBC), WVEC-TV
13 (ABC), WGNT
27
(CW), WTVZ
33
(MyNetworkTV), WVBT
43
(Fox), and WPXV
49
(ION Television). The Public Broadcasting Service
station is WHRO-TV
15. WUND 2(UNC-TV/PBS member station),
broadcasting out of Edenton, NC
, serves as another PBS affiliate for the
area. Area residents also can receive independent
stations, such as WSKY
broadcasting on channel 4 from the Outer Banks of North Carolina,
WGBS broadcasting on channel 7 from Hampton,
and WHRE
21
, a TBN
affiliate out of Virginia Beach. Most Hampton Roads
localities are served by
Cox Cable which
provides
LNC 5, a local 24-hour cable news
network. Suffolk, Franklin, Isle of Wight, and Southampton are
served by Charter Communications.
DirecTV and
Dish Network are also popular as an
alternative to cable television.
Norfolk is served by a variety of radio stations on the and dials,
with towers located around the Hampton Roads area. These cater to
many different interests, including
news,
talk radio, and
sports, as well as an eclectic mix of
musical interests.
Sports
Norfolk serves as home to two professional franchises, the
Norfolk Tides of the
International League and the
Norfolk Admirals of the
American Hockey League.
The Tides play at
Harbor
Park
, seating 12,067 and opened in 1993.
The
Admirals play at Norfolk Scope
Arena, seating 12,600 or 13,800 festival seating,
which opened in 1971.
On the collegiate level, the
Old
Dominion Monarchs and the
Norfolk State Spartans
provide many sports including football (coming to Old Dominion in
2009), basketball, and baseball.
Virginia Wesleyan College also
provides sports at the NCAA Division III level. Newport News'
Christopher
Newport University Captains field fourteen sports and compete
in the
USA South Athletic
Conference in
Division III of the
NCAA. The
College of William and Mary Tribe
in Williamsburg and
Hampton
University Pirates in Hampton compete in Division I of the
NCAA.
The
Hampton
Coliseum
, seating 10,761 ot 13,800 festival seating, hosts
the annual Virginia Duals wrestling
events, and the annual Hampton
Jazz Festival. The arena opened in 1970 and has previously
hosted Hampton
University
basketball along with NBA and
NHL preseason exhibition games.
Virginia Beach serves as home to two
soccer teams, the
Hampton Roads Piranhas, a men's team
in the
USL Premier
Development League, and a women's team by the same name in the
W-League, the
de facto top women's
league after the suspension of the
Women's United Soccer
Association.
The Piranhas play at the Virginia
Beach Sportsplex
. The Virginia Beach Sportsplex
, seating 11,541 and opened in 1999, contains the
central training site for the U.S. women's national field hockey team. The
North American Sand
Soccer Championships, a
beach
soccer tournament, is held annually on the beach in Virginia
Beach.
Virginia Beach is also home to the
East Coast Surfing
Championships, an annual contest of more than 100 of the
world's top professional surfers and an estimated 400 amateur
surfers. This is North America's oldest surfing contest, and
features combined cash prizes of $40,000.
The
Peninsula Pilots play in the
Coastal Plain League, a summer
baseball league.
The Pilots play in Hampton at War
Memorial Stadium
seating 5,125 and opened in 1948.
Langley
Speedway
in Hampton, seating 6,500, hosts stock car races
every weekend during Spring, Summer, and early Fall.
The
Michelob ULTRA Open
at Kingsmill, an event on the
LPGA
Tour, is contested annually on
Mother's
Day weekend at Kingsmill Resort near Williamsburg.
The
Norfolk Nighthawks were a
charter member of the
Arena
Football League's minor league,
af2. They
ceased operations in 2003 after their fourth season. Also, the
Virginia Beach Mariners of
soccer's
USL First Division were
active from 1994 until 2006.
In 1997, Norfolk presented a proposal to bring an expansion hockey
team to Hampton Roads. But that initiative failed. The team was
going to be called the
Hampton
Roads Rhinos.
In 2002,
Norfolk presented a proposal to bring the Charlotte Hornets
basketball team to southeastern Virginia, but New Orleans
won the bid for the team, renaming it the New Orleans Hornets.
In 2005,
Norfolk presented a proposal to bring the Montreal Expos baseball team to the metro
area, but Washington, D.C.
won the bid for the team, renaming it the Washington Nationals.
Tallest buildings
See also
References
- http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/roads Dictionary.
com
- What's in a name? Hampton Roads | HamptonRoads.com |
PilotOnline.com
- http://www.apva.org/history/index.html Association for the
Preservation of Virginia Antiquities: Jamestown
History
- http://www.uscg.mil/mlclant/iscportsmouth/ Coast Guard
Integrated Support Command Portsmouth
- [1]
- O'Dell, Larry. "Supreme Court ruling voids Hampton Roads
Transportation Authority", Associated Press,
http://www.dailypress.com/dp-gasupremecourt0229,0,6977613.story
Retrieved 2008-03-13.
- Amtrak Newport News Station Amtrak. Accessed
April 3, 2008.
- http://www.greyhound.com/home/
- Bus Routes Hampton Roads Transit. Accessed April 3,
2008.
- http://www.williamsburgtransport.com/
- http://www.virginiadot.org/travel/hro-tunnel-default.asp
Virginia Department of Transportation Travel Center - Hampton Roads
Tunnels and Bridges
- About W&M College of William and Mary. Accessed
April 3, 2008.
- Hampton Facts Hampton University. Accessed April 3,
2008.
- About CNU
Christopher Newport University. Accessed April 3, 2008.
- Why TNCC? Thomas Nelson Community College.
Accessed April 3, 2008.
- http://www.portsmouthva.gov/planning/cradock.htm Cradock
- http://www.janafshopping.com/aboutjanaf.php About JANAF
Shopping Center
- http://www.hreda.com Hampton Roads Economic Development
Alliance
- Exhibitions The Mariner's Museum. Accessed April 3,
2008.
- ExhibitsVirginia War Museum. Accessed April 3,
2008.
- Hands on For Kids GalleryPeninsula Fine Arts Center.
Accessed April 3, 2008.
- Newport News ParkNewport News Department of Parks,
Recreation, and Tourism. Accessed April 3, 2008.
- Holmes, Gary. " Nielsen Reports 1.1% increase in U.S. Television
Households for the 2006-2007 Season." Nielsen
Media Research. September 23, 2006. Retrieved on September
28, 2007.
- [2] Charter Communications
- CNU
AthleticsChristopher Newport University. Accessed April 4,
2008.
External links