Coordinates: 36°58′N 76°22′W / 36.967°N 76.367°W / 36.967; -76.367
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.
Some 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 , 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
Main article: History of Hampton RoadsThe 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 earl
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