Virginia county map

Counties and independent cities

Virginia’s county map is unlike any other state’s. Under Virginia law every city is independent of the county around it: it is not part of the county, its residents pay no county taxes and its government provides all local services. The Census Bureau therefore counts each of the 38 independent cities as a county-equivalent, giving 133 county-level units in total — the figure used on this site. Only three other states have any independent cities at all (Baltimore, St. Louis and Carson City), and the table below lists Virginia’s cities in alphabetical order alongside the counties, marked “independent city”. Towns, by contrast, remain inside their counties.

The counties are the oldest in the country. The eight original shires of 1634 — among them James City, Charles City, Henrico, York, Isle of Wight and Northampton — were created less than 30 years after Jamestown, and most of the Tidewater and Piedmont counties date from before the Revolution. The Blue Ridge and Valley counties followed in the 1700s, and the south-west corner was organised last: Dickenson County (Clintwood) in 1880 is the newest. More than two dozen counties bear the names of English monarchs, their consorts and nobles (King William, King and Queen, Prince George, Prince William, Princess Anne now gone, Caroline, Amelia, Louisa, Buckingham, Fauquier, Loudoun), which is why the map reads like a Georgian court list.

The city map has changed more recently. Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Suffolk are former counties (Princess Anne, Norfolk County and Nansemond) that converted wholesale to cities in 1963–1974 to stop annexation, which is why they are huge for cities. Manassas, Manassas Park and Poquoson (all 1975) are the newest independent cities. A few cities share a name with a neighbouring county they are not part of — Fairfax, Franklin, Richmond and Roanoke — and Bedford, once a city, rejoined Bedford County as a town in 2013. Several counties share a courthouse city: Charlottesville is the seat of Albemarle County, Winchester of Frederick, Harrisonburg of Rockingham, Staunton of Augusta and Lexington of Rockbridge.

All 95 counties and 38 independent cities of Virginia

Five county facts

• Largest by area: Pittsylvania County, seat Chatham, about 970 square miles on the North Carolina line around (but not including) the independent city of Danville. Augusta, Bath and Rockingham counties in the Shenandoah Valley are next. Among cities, Suffolk (about 400 square miles) and Virginia Beach are far larger than most counties in the east.
• Smallest by area: Arlington County, about 26 square miles across the Potomac from Washington, the smallest self-governing county in the United States; it has no incorporated places and no separate county seat. The smallest independent city, Falls Church, is about 2 square miles.
• Most populous: Fairfax County, seat Fairfax (an independent city that lies inside it but is not part of it), with about 1.15 million people in 2020 — more than one Virginian in eight. Prince William and Loudoun counties, also in Northern Virginia, are second and third at about 480,000 and 420,000; Virginia Beach is the most populous city at about 459,000.
• Least populous: Highland County, seat Monterey, in the Allegheny Mountains on the West Virginia line, with about 2,200 people. Norton, in the coalfields of the south-west, is the smallest independent city at about 3,700.
• Oldest and newest: the shires of 1634 are the oldest county units in the country. Dickenson County (1880) is the newest county; Manassas, Manassas Park and Poquoson (1975) are the newest independent cities, and the last county-to-city conversion was Suffolk in 1974.

Reading the map

Press Streets and zoom in on the highlighted state to see county and city lines. The independent cities appear as holes in the counties around them, most obviously in the Hampton Roads cluster, where Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Hampton, Newport News, Poquoson and Williamsburg leave almost no county land at all. The Tidewater counties along Chesapeake Bay and the Eastern Shore (Accomack and Northampton) are small and water-bound; the counties grow in size through the Piedmont and across the Blue Ridge into the Shenandoah Valley, and become mountainous and thinly settled in the south-west toe of the state between Kentucky and Tennessee. Richmond, the capital and an independent city, is surrounded by Henrico and Chesterfield counties. The whole state keeps Eastern Time.

Related maps

• Virginia map — cities, borders and geography.
• Blank Virginia map and printable Virginia map.
• Richmond, the state capital and an independent city; Washington, DC, across the Potomac from Arlington.
• Neighbouring county maps: Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina.
• South Atlantic states · Mid-Atlantic · Eastern Time Zone.
• Geography: Appalachian Mountains, US coastlines, Mason–Dixon line.
• All US county maps.