Virginia Beach is located on the ocean in the mid-Atlantic region in the southeastern corner of Virginia, with the Atlantic Ocean on the east and the Chesapeake Bay on the north. It is part of the area known as Hampton Roads. In the early 1600s the world's largest natural harbor—where the Chesapeake Bay meets the James River—provided easy access to the colony of Virginia. An English nobleman named Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton, financed early expeditions to Virginia. In his honor the harbor was named Earl of Southampton's Roadstead, roadstead meaning a sheltered anchorage. Eventually it was shortened to Hampton Roads. Today, a bridge-tunnel spans the great harbor linking the peninsula cities of Hampton, Newport News, and Williamsburg, the town of Poquoson, and the counties of Gloucester, James City, and York with the Southside cities of Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Franklin, and the counties of Isle of Wight and Southampton. The area experiences four moderate seasons without climactic extremes, in which the warm spring leads to hazy, hot summer days, and warm muggy nights that turn into the bright sunny days and cool crisp nights of autumn and the colder days of winter. The area has an average snowfall of 8.9 inches annually.
Area: 248 square miles (2000)
Elevation: sea level to 12 feet above sea level
Average Temperatures: January, 40.1° F; July, 79.1° F; annual average, 59.6° F
Average Annual Precipitation: 45.74 inches