VIRGINIA 



6091 



VIRGINIA 



Capitol and Washington Monument, Richmond 



IRGINIA, virjin'ia, the northernmost 

 state of the South Atlantic group of the United 

 States. It was the earliest permanent English 

 colony in America, and at one time the term 

 Virginia, given by Sir Walter Raleigh to this 

 colony in honor of Elizabeth, the "Virgin 

 Queen," was applied to much of the southern 

 coast region. 



Virginia is distinguished as the birthplace of 

 eight of the country's Presidents, a greater 

 number than have been born in any other state, 

 and well may be called the "Mother of Presi- 

 dents." Because it has given to the Union 

 not only these Presidents, but such statesmen 

 as Mason, Henry, Marshall, Randolph and 

 Clay, and because it at one time embraced the 

 territory from which were created the Northwest 

 Territory and the states of Kentucky and West 

 Virginia, it has earned the title of "Mother of 

 States and Statesmen. In uly documents the 

 colony was alluded to as the "Colony and Do- 

 minion of Virginia" and later as the "Dominion 

 of \ iiuiin.i." or merely the "Ancient Dominion," 

 hence the state is popularly known as the OLD 

 DOMIN 



Size and Location. In shape Virginia is 

 roughly triangular, with the apex to the north; 

 Maryland, Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic 

 are on the northeast and east; North Carolina 

 forms a horizontal base on the south ; and West 

 Virginia and Kentucky bound the sloping side 

 on the west. Having an area of 42,627 square 

 miles, of which 2365 square miles are water, it 



ranks thirty-third in size and is a little less than 

 twice the size of Nova Scotia. It is consider- 

 ably larger than two of its northern neighbors, 

 West Virginia and Maryland, combined. 



The People. The population has steadily in- 

 creased with the industrial development since 

 the close of the War of Secession. On January 

 1, 1917, the number of inhabitants was esti- 

 mated by the Census Bureau to be 2,202.522 ; in 

 1910, with a population of 2,061,612, it ranked 

 twentieth in population among the states. The 

 average density of the population was 512 per 

 square mile, as compared with 30.9, the average 

 number per square mile in the United States. 

 ()\( r thirty-two per cent of the population \\viv 

 negroes, this proportion being slightly smaller 

 than that which had existed for the previous 

 150 years. The negroes are still indispensable 

 as field laborers in the plantations of Eastern 

 Virginia and are also employed as factory 

 hands. As freemen they have made some prog- 

 ress, and many have acquired small farms of 

 their own. Of the foreigners, the Germans, 

 Irish, English, Russians, Italians and Scotch are 

 most numerous. 



Although the number and site of the cities 

 and towns have recently increased, in 1910 over 

 three-fourths of the population still lived in 

 rural communities. Richmond, the capital, is 

 the largest city, and in 1916 had an estimated 

 population of 156,687. Norfolk, Roanoke, 

 Portsmouth, Petersburg, Danville and Lynch- 

 burg are other important cities. 



