Virginia

The first permanent English colony in America (Jamestown, 1607) and the demographic and political heart of the early republic, Virginia gave the new nation four of its first five presidents. Its Tidewater tobacco economy was built on enslaved labour, and its planter elite shaped American constitutionalism. It seceded in 1861 and hosted the Confederate capital at Richmond, losing its western counties to the new state of West Virginia.

• Existed: 1607 CE – present
• Type: Entity
• Government: U.S. State
• Capital: Richmond