And it's easier to examine Virginia in small chunks as well. But how do you split - or lump - the pieces together? Does "Southwest Virginia" start at Roanoke, or Bristol? Do the suburbs of Richmond include Goochland? Is Fredericksburg in Northern Virginia?
Jim Fonseca, when he was a geography professor and taught the "Geography of Virginia" class at George Mason University, selected 9 regions that seemed to "fit together." Here's how he saw it after years of studying Virginia, in an article published in the Virginia Geographer (Fall-Winter, 1990 issue):
The human geography of contemporary Virginia is the product of complex interaction between the state's physical environment and its human population. The diverse physiographic regions of the state--the Coastal Plain, the Piedmont, the Blue Ridge, the Shenandoah Valley, and the Appalachian Plateau--are important influences, but they are not the only factors explaining regional population distribution and economic activity in the Commonwealth.
One of the more critical factors influencing Virginia's geography is the location of the state in reference to larger multistate regions, such as Megalopolis, Appalachia, and the Piedmont Manufacturing Belt. The boundaries of these regions are seldom sharply demarcated, either on the national or the Virginia landscape. However, a useful approximation of their spatial extent in Virginia can be obtained by analyzing the state's physical geography in terms of social and economic data for nine contemporary regions that are based on the boundaries of the state's twenty-one planning districts. (NOTE from October, 2000: There used to be two more, but the districts are merging. This is a clue that the distinctiveness and the provincialism of Virginia government is shrinking.)
This analysis will begin in Northern Virginia, proceed clockwise around the periphery of the state, and conclude with an examination of the Richmond Region in the heart of the state.