- The Nine Regions of Virginia
- Regions of Virginia - and Why Isn't There An East Virginia?
- How Virginia Split Into "East" and West Virginia (But With Only Three Shenandoah Valley Counties, and Without Southwest Virginia)
- Taxonomy of Place
- Where is "Tidewater" in Virginia? (recognize the Fall Line on the map?)
- Virginia's Coastal Resources Management Area, as defined for the Coastal Zone Management Act (see any differences in the jurisdictions affected by the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act?)
- Note that Loudoun County is excluded, but Fairfax is included - the coastal zone is based on the boundaries of "tidewater" and does not include all counties in the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed.
- Norfolk to 1845 (note that a physical feature, the confluence of 2 waterways, determined where Norfolk would be located)
- Hampton Roads Partnership:
- An Introduction to Planning District Commissions
- Map of Virginia's Planning Districts
- Compare population projections to the year 2030 for Northern Neck PDC (Planning District 17), Middle Peninsula PDC (Planning District 18), and Accomack-Northampton PDC (Planning District 22). Also contrast Hampton Roads PDC (Planning District 23) with Northern Virginia PDC (Planning District 8, now known as the Northern Virgina Regional Commission).
- Water Water Everywhere...
- remember the boundaries of the Drainage Basins of Virginia
- Lake Gaston Water Supply Project
- King William Reservoir
- The "Roads" of Hampton Roads
- The Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel: a Fiscally Conservative Investment
- Heartland Corridor To Improve Rail Access To Midwest extract from Virginia Maritimer, September/October 2005 (transportation managers today, like George Washington in the past, are still trying to improve transportation links between Atlantic seaports and the "interior")
- What Makes Hampton Roads Unique?
- The box that changed Hampton Roads (The Virginian-Pilot, April 23, 2006, and also posted on Blackboard as "Box")
- Area map of Hampton Roads terminals (NNMT is "Newport News Marine Terminal," PMT is Portsmouth Marine Terminal - can you figure out what NIT stands for?)
- terminal map of NNMT (look for the CSX railroad tracks, bringing coal to the dock on the northern side of the James River, downstream from Williamsburg)
- The Growth of Hampton Roads
- Eastern Shore
- Southside Virginia (south of what natural feature?)
- the farming economy was based on tobacco, and the manufacturing economy was based on textiles - so what happens when they both go south (literally, in the case of textiles)? Read these articles from "Virginia Business" magazine:
- Need to entice businesses to move to a region and create jobs? One Solution: Build New Roads
- Subsidizing Road Development: the Route 58 Corridor
- Shenandoah Valley
- Appalachian Plateau
- find the Eastern Continental Divide in Wise County - is the City of Norton east or west of that divide?
- find the boundaries of the LENOWISCO Planning District Commission, Cumberland Plateau Planning District Commission, and Mount Rogers Planning District Commission on the Map of Planning Districts (and can you figure out which letters of the names of the member jurisdictions led to the name "LENOWISCO"?)
- What is happening to the population of Virginia's Appalachian Plateau counties? See the population estimates for Buchanan, Dickenson, and Wise counties? Using American Factfinder, look at fact sheets for those three counties to identify the "Percentage of population 25 years and older who have earned a Bachelor's Degree or higher." If you were the chief of a technology-related business that needed to hire software engineers from the local workforce, and you were looking for an area with no traffic jams and great mountain scenery, would you open a facility in Buchanan County? What if you were looking for an attractive place to establish a new "call center," where employees needed a different set of skills to answer the phone and help customers purchase items from an online catalog?
population trends for Buchanan, Dickenson, and Wise counties
Wise County Hydrography
Source: Virginia County Interactive Mapper (now retired - no longer available)
- Coal Country
3) Virginia Journey: The Shenandoah Valley
4) Web Exercises: Use the Historical Census Data Browser to check population growth in Appalachian Plateau counties after 1880
5) Map Exercises:
- Use the Delorme Atlas and Gazetteer to find Lake Gaston/Buggs Island Lake (remember your US 58 journey?), and Cohoke Creek in King William County (take State Highway 30 northwest from West Point...). Water from which location is closer to Newport News?
- Can you trace the Lake Gaston pipeline route in the Atlas? (Here's a hint.)
6) Site Visit:
Trace your drinking water backwards from the tap to the water source. Does your water come from a reservoir, a well, or a pipe in a river? (Need a hint? Check out the Virginia Drinking Water website from EPA.)
7) Complete Quiz #11 on Blackboard, covering material from previous weeks.
Deadlines
November 28 - Quiz #11 posted on on Blackboard
November 30 - Quiz #11 due by midnight
December 5 - final version of 1-page paper due
What railroad connected Norfolk to the western regions of the state in the 1880's?
What commodity would that railroad haul to Norfolk - then, and now?
Source:
Library of Congress
Class Schedule
Geography of Virginia
