Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. Its geography and climate are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay. The state's capital is Richmond. Its most-populous city is Virginia Beach, and Fairfax County is the state's most-populous political subdivision. Virginia's population in 2022 was over 8.68 million, with 35% living within the Greater Washington metropolitan area.
West Virginia is a state in the Southern United States. It is bordered by Pennsylvania to the north and east, Maryland to the east and northeast, Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, and Ohio to the northwest. West Virginia is the 10th-smallest state by area and ranks as the 12th-least populous state, with a population of 1,793,716 residents. The capital and largest city is Charleston.
Charleston is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of West Virginia and the seat of Kanawha County. Located at the confluence of the Elk and Kanawha rivers, the city had a population of 48,864 at the 2020 census and an estimated population of 48,018 in 2021. The Charleston metropolitan area as a whole had an estimated 255,020 residents in 2021.
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson. Set within the Academical Village, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the university is referred to as a "Public Ivy" for offering an academic experience similar to that of an Ivy League university. It is known in part for certain rare characteristics among public universities such as its historic foundations, student-run honor code, and secret societies.
Virginia Beach is an independent city located on the southeastern coast in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The population was 459,470 at the 2020 census. Although mostly suburban in character, it is the most populous city in Virginia, fifth-most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, ninth-most populous city in the Southeast and the 42nd-most populous city in the U.S. Located on the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, Virginia Beach is the largest city in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. This area, known as "America's First Region", also includes the independent cities of Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Suffolk, as well as other smaller cities, counties, and towns of Hampton Roads.
Arlington County is a county in the U.S. state of Virginia. The county is located in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from Washington, D.C.. The county is coextensive with the U.S. Census Bureau's census-designated place of Arlington. Arlington County is the second-largest city in the Washington metropolitan area, although it does not have the legal designation of an independent city or incorporated town under Virginia state law.
Macon County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee As of the 2020 census, the population was 25,216. Its county seat is Lafayette. Macon County is part of the Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Franklin, TN Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Virginia Tech (VT), formally Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VPI), is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It also has educational facilities in six regions statewide, a research center in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, and a study-abroad site in Riva San Vitale, Switzerland. Through its Corps of Cadets ROTC program, Virginia Tech is a senior military college.
The governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia serves as the head of government of Virginia for a four-year term. The incumbent, Glenn Youngkin, was sworn in on January 15, 2022.
The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, the first elected legislative assembly in the New World, and was established on July 30, 1619. The General Assembly is a bicameral body consisting of a lower house, the Virginia House of Delegates, with 100 members, and an upper house, the Senate of Virginia, with 40 members. Senators serve terms of four years, and Delegates serve two-year terms. Combined, the General Assembly consists of 140 elected representatives from an equal number of constituent districts across the commonwealth. The House of Delegates is presided over by the Speaker of the House, while the Senate is presided over by the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. The House and Senate each elect a clerk and sergeant-at-arms. The Senate of Virginia's clerk is known as the "Clerk of the Senate".
In the United States before 1865, a slave state was a state in which slavery and the internal or domestic slave trade were legal, while a free state was one in which they were prohibited. Between 1812 and 1850, it was considered by the slave states to be politically imperative that the number of free states not exceed the number of slave states, so new states were admitted in slave–free pairs. There were, nonetheless, some slaves in most free states up to the 1840 census, and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 specifically stated that a slave did not become free by entering a free state.
The Virginia House of Delegates is one of the two parts of the Virginia General Assembly, the other being the Senate of Virginia. It has 100 members elected for terms of two years; unlike most states, these elections take place during odd-numbered years. The House is presided over by the Speaker of the House, who is elected from among the House membership by the Delegates. The Speaker is usually a member of the majority party and, as Speaker, becomes the most powerful member of the House. The House shares legislative power with the Senate of Virginia, the upper house of the Virginia General Assembly. The House of Delegates is the modern-day successor to the Virginia House of Burgesses, which first met at Jamestown in 1619. The House is divided into Democratic and Republican caucuses. In addition to the Speaker, there is a majority leader, majority whip, majority caucus chair, minority leader, minority whip, minority caucus chair, and the chairs of the several committees of the House.
The Senate of Virginia is the upper house of the Virginia General Assembly. The Senate is composed of 40 senators representing an equal number of single-member constituent districts. The Senate is presided over by the lieutenant governor of Virginia. Prior to the American War of Independence, the upper house of the General Assembly was represented by the Virginia Governor's Council, consisting of up to 12 executive counselors appointed by the colonial royal governor as advisers and jurists.
Commonwealth is a term used by four of the 50 states of the United States in their full official state names. "Commonwealth" is a traditional English term used to describe a political community as having been founded for the common good. The four states – Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia – are all in the Eastern United States, and prior to the formation of the United States in 1776 were British colonial possessions. As such, they share a strong influence of English common law in some of their laws and institutions. However, the "commonwealth" appellation has no legal or political significance, and it does not make "commonwealth" states any different from other U.S. states.
The Virginia Tech shooting was a spree shooting that occurred on April 16, 2007, comprising two attacks on the campus of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States. Seung-Hui Cho, an undergraduate student at the university and a U.S. resident originally from South Korea, killed 32 people and wounded 17 others with two semi-automatic pistols. Six others were injured jumping out of windows to escape Cho.
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sovereignty with the federal government. Due to this shared sovereignty, Americans are citizens both of the federal republic and of the state in which they reside. State citizenship and residency are flexible, and no government approval is required to move between states, except for persons restricted by certain types of court orders.
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