Virginia Beach is an independent city located in the South Hampton Roads area of Virginia, on the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. It is the most populous city in Virginia and the 40th largest city in the United States, with an estimated population of 440,415 in 2008.
Virginia Beach is the easternmost of the Seven Cities of Hampton Roads that make up the core of the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC MSA. 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.
Virginia Beach is a resort city with miles of beaches and hundreds of hotels, motels, and restaurants along its oceanfront. Every year the city hosts to the East Coast Surfing Championship as well as the North American Sand Soccer Championship. It is also home to several state parks, several long protected beach areas, three military bases, a number of large corporations, two universities, and historic sites. Near the point where the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean meet, Cape Henry was the site of the first landing of the English colonists bound for Jamestown on April 26, 1607.
The city is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as having the longest pleasure beach in the world. It is located at the southern end of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, the longest bridge-tunnel complex in the world. |
