Chesapeake

Chesapeake, VA

In the American state of Virginia, Chesapeake is a stand-alone city. With a population of 249,422 as of the 2020 Census, the city ranked 90th in terms of population in the United States, ninth in the Mid-Atlantic, and second among independent cities in Virginia.

The urban region of Virginia Beach, Norfolk, and Newport News includes Chesapeake. Chesapeake, one of the cities in South Hampton Roads, was established in 1963 as a result of voter approval of the political union of South Norfolk with the surviving portions of the former Norfolk County, which dates back to 1691. (A large portion of the county's land had already been absorbed by neighboring cities.) The 17th-largest city in the US and the second-largest by land area in the Commonwealth of Virginia is Chesapeake.

With a few urban sections and several square miles of protected farmland, woodlands, and wetlands, including a sizeable chunk of the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, Chesapeake is a diversified metropolis. Chesapeake is situated on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway and stretches from the rural border with North Carolina to the harbor area of Hampton Roads close to the cities of Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, and Virginia Beach. Industrial, commercial, and residential riverfront property extends for miles.

Chesapeake was ranked as the 21st greatest city in the US by Bloomberg Businessweek in 2011. The international headquarters of Dollar Tree are located in Chesapeake.

History

When South Norfolk, another independent city, merged with Norfolk County in 1963, the new independent city of Chesapeake was born. The Virginia General Assembly allowed the consolidation, and the residents of each community accepted it and chose the new name in a referendum.

When Norfolk County was established in the Virginia Colony in 1691, it effectively encompassed the whole region that would later develop into the towns and cities of Norfolk, Portsmouth, and South Norfolk. After 1871, as these cities expanded through annexations, its area shrunk. As cities could not annex area from one another, becoming an independent city was a way for the former county to fix borders with neighbors.

South Norfolk, a relatively tiny city, had been formed as a town within Norfolk County in 1919 and became a city on its own in 1922. Its citizens desired change to put its jurisdiction on a level playing field with the much larger cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth in other respects. In addition, by the late 1950s, South Norfolk was on the verge of losing all the county land that bordered it to the city of Norfolk in another annexation suit, despite being exempt from annexation by larger cities.

Between 1952 and 1975, a series of changes to the makeup of municipal government in southeast Virginia resulted in the consolidation that gave rise to the city of Chesapeake.

In the colonial history of the state, when settlement began from the coast, the Chesapeake region was among the first to be populated. The Battle of Great Bridge took place at the Great Bridge locks, which separate the Southern Branch Elizabeth River from the Chesapeake and Albemarle Canal along the Intracoastal Waterway in Chesapeake. The fight, fought on December 9, 1775, during the early stages of the American Revolutionary War, led to Lord Dunmore and all traces of the English government being expelled from the Colony and Dominion of Virginia.

Picture of Lake Drummond from Virginia's Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge

Much of Chesapeake was either suburban or rural until the late 1980s and early 1990s, when many commuted to the nearby cities of Norfolk and Virginia Beach, where it served as a bedroom community. However, Chesapeake had substantial expansion that began in the late 1980s and picked up speed in the 1990s, drawing a variety of important sectors and enterprises of its own. The municipal infrastructure experienced pressures as a result of the city's rapid growth, including clogged roads and schools as well as saltwater intrusion into the city's water supply.

When the first trial of alleged Beltway sniper Lee Boyd Malvo for shootings in 2002 was held in Chesapeake in 2003 as a result of a court-ordered change of site, the city gained global headlines. The young man, who was 17 at the time of the crime spree, was sentenced to "life in prison without parole" by a jury after being found guilty of murder but was spared the possibility of the death penalty. A jury in the nearby Virginia Beach found his senior partner John Allen Muhammad guilty of one of the attacks and gave him the death penalty.

On November 22, 2022, a Walmart off of Battlefield Boulevard in Chesapeake was the scene of a large-scale shooting. In addition to the gunman's suicide, seven persons were also killed and four more were hurt.

Geography

Chesapeake may be found at 36°46′2′′N and 76°17′14′′W. (36.767398, -76.287405).

The city has a total area of 351 square miles (910 km2), of which 341 square miles (880 km2) is land and 10 square miles (26 km2) (2.9%) is water, according to the United States Census Bureau.

Chesapeake is home to the Great Dismal Swamp's northern region.

Multiple environments

In terms of total area, Chesapeake is among the bigger cities in both Virginia and the US. It makes it difficult for city officials to fund the infrastructure needed to serve this region. The city also contains numerous villages that are geographically and historically different. City officials must decide how to balance the expansion of residential, commercial, and industrial regions with the preservation of pristine wetlands and forested areas. A sizable piece of the Great Dismal Swamp is located in the southwest corner of the city.

Climate

Summers in this region are hot and muggy, whereas winters are often pleasant to chilly. Chesapeake has a humid subtropical climate, which is shown on climate maps by the initials "Cfa" in accordance with the Köppen Climate Classification system.

Education

The neighborhood school system is Chesapeake City Public Schools.

There are seven locations and a lending station in the Chesapeake Public Library System. Resources can be checked out online or in person at any of the branches after receiving a library card. In addition, if the resource you require is located at a separate location, you can submit an online or in-person request for an interlibrary loan.

The Chesapeake Public Library provides the local population with a range of literary, educational, and career services. The Chesapeake Public Library's mission statement states that one of its main goals is to "assist learners at every level to achieve in their academic and professional endeavors." This goal is achieved in a number of methods, such as free adult and youth online courses, open access to a huge selection of digital educational resources, career help events, and creative/artistic programming.

Population

The city of Chesapeake is situated in Virginia. It will have a population of 257,585 in 2023, making it the 90th largest city in the United States and the second largest in Virginia. Chesapeake's population has grown by 3.27% from the most recent census, which showed a population of 249,422 in 2020, and is now rising at a pace of 1.07% annually. Chesapeake, which spans more than 351 miles, has a population density of 761 persons per square mile.

Chesapeake has a poverty rate of 9.14% and a $97,038 average household income. The median monthly cost of rent in recent years has been, and the median value of a home is. In Chesapeake, the median age is 37 years, with 35.7 years for men and 38.1 years for women.

Virginia's Commonwealth of Virginia is home to the autonomous city of Chesapeake. There is no county in which Chesapeake is situated. The city of Chesapeake is close to the North Carolina border.

Chesapeake is the second-largest city in terms of land area and has the third-highest population in Virginia. Chesapeake's population density is 660% more than the national average and 260% higher than the average for Virginia.

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