Hampton is an independent city in Virginia, and therefore not part of any Virginia county. One of the Seven Cities of Hampton Roads, it is on the southeast end of the Virginia Peninsula, bordering on Hampton Roads and Chesapeake Bay.
As of the 2000 U.S. census, the city population was 146,437, but the census estimate for 2005 showed that the city's population was down slightly to 145,579.
Hampton hosts Fort Monroe, Langley Air Force Base, NASA Langley Research Center, the Virginia Air and Space Center, and features a wide array of business and industrial enterprises, retail and residential areas, historical sites, and miles of waterfront and beaches.
History
The former Native American community of Kecoughtan settled in 1610 in the Virginia Colony forms the basis for Hampton's claim to the oldest continuously occupied English settlement in North America. Considered strategic for defense purposes against other Europeans, it was seized from the natives by colonists under Virginia's Governor, Sir Thomas Gates in 1610.
Hampton was named for Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, an important leader of the Virginia Company of London, for whom the Hampton River, Hampton Roads, Southampton County and Northampton County were also named.
Long a town in Elizabeth City County, the current independent city of Hampton became much larger after a municipal consolidation with the incorporated town of Phoebus and Elizabeth City County, Virginia in 1952. Today, the City of Hampton essentially incorporates the boundaries of Elizabeth City County which was created in 1643 from Elizabeth River Shire, one of the eight original shires of 1634 in Colonial Virginia, with several minor exceptions.
The original site of the Native American's Kecoughtan Settlement was near the present site of a Hampton Roads Transit facility. To the south of present-day Hampton, a small unrelated incorporated town also named Kecoughtan many years later and also located in Elizabeth City County was annexed by the City of Newport News in 1927, and now forms part of that city's East End.
Hampton had the misfortune to be burned during both the American Revolutionary War and the American Civil War. From the ruins of Hampton left by evacuating Confederates in 1861, "Contraband" slaves (formerly owned by Confederates and under a degree of Union protection) built the Grand Contraband Camp, the first self-contained African American community in the United States. A number of modern-day Hampton streets retain their names from that community. The large number of contrabands who sought the refuge of Fort Monroe and the Grand Contraband Camp led to educational efforts which eventually included establishment of Hampton University, site of the famous Emancipation Oak.
Geography
Hampton is located at (37.034946, -76.360126).
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 352.8 square kilometers (136.2 mi²). 134.1 square kilometers (51.8 mi²) of it is land and 218.7 square kilometers (84.4 mi²) of it (61.99%) is water.
Adjacent counties and cities
