Richmond, Virginia

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Richmond
Nickname : River City, Cap City
Richmond's skyline behind the James River
Richmond's skyline behind the James River
Location in Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond
Richmond
Basic data
Foundation : 1737
State : United States
State : Virginia
County : Independent city
Coordinates : 37 ° 33 ′  N , 77 ° 27 ′  W Coordinates: 37 ° 33 ′  N , 77 ° 27 ′  W
Time zone : Eastern ( UTC − 5 / −4 )
Inhabitants :
-  Metropolitan Area :		 223,170 (as of 2016)
1,281,708 (as of 2016)
Population density : 1,434.3 inhabitants per km 2
Area : 162 km 2  (about 63 mi 2 ) of
which 155.6 km 2  (about 60 mi 2 ) is land
Height : 45 m
Postcodes : 23218-23298
Area code : +1 804
FIPS : 51-67000
GNIS ID : 1499957
Website : www.richmondgov.com
Mayor : Levar Stoney ( D )
MJK50147 Virginia State Capitol.jpg
Virginia State Capitol (2017)

Richmond is the capital of the US state Virginia in the United States and is the seat of Virginia Commonwealth University . During the American Civil War from 1861 to 1865, Richmond was the capital of the Confederation .

geography

Richmond lies on the James River , about 150 kilometers upstream from its confluence with Chesapeake Bay . The location of the city is characterized by the transition from the Atlantic lowlands to the Piedmont hill country , which lies in front of the Appalachians .

history

17th and 18th centuries

growth of population
Census Residents ± in%
1790 3761 -
1800 5737 52.5%
1810 9735 69.7%
1820 12,067 24%
1830 16,060 33.1%
1840 20,153 25.5%
1850 27,570 36.8%
1860 37,910 37.5%
1870 51,038 34.6%
1880 63,600 24.6%
1890 81,388 28%
1900 85,050 4.5%
1910 127,628 50.1%
1920 171,667 34.5%
1930 182.929 6.6%
1940 193.042 5.5%
1950 230.310 19.3%
1960 219,958 -4.5%
1970 249,621 13.5%
1980 219.214 -12.2%
1990 203.056 -7.4%
2000 197,790 -2.6%
2010 204.214 3.2%
1790-2010

Captain Christopher Newport dropped the first English reconnaissance force in 1607 in the area, which was later to be named after a suburb of London . Until then, the area was owned by Indians who belonged to the Powhatan Confederation.

After two unsuccessful attempts to establish a settlement in this natural and excellent place for trade and traffic, the settlers finally got better luck. Around 1644, the newly built Fort Charles attracted more settlers as a safety factor. The community soon prospered as a trading post for fur , animal hides and tobacco .

The actual city was only founded in 1737 by Colonel William Byrd II . He had inherited the two parcels on the sides of the James River from his father and thus became Richmond's founding father . His friend William Mayo mapped Richmond and the first properties found their buyers.

Richmond was populated by a mere 250 residents in 1742 when it received its city ​​rights . The city ​​was sacked twice during the War of Independence . In 1788 it became the capital of Virginia instead of Williamsburg .

19th century

The Southern White House, seat of government of Jefferson Davis .

On December 18, 1811, the actress Elizabeth Poe died in a Richmond hotel, leaving behind two other children the two-year-old Edgar Poe , who was taken into the family of the tobacco dealer John Allan as a foster child. Richmond thus became the actual hometown of the poet, who kept coming back here.

After the War of Independence, the city recovered quickly and grew to around 100,000 inhabitants by the middle of the 19th century. It was considered the metropolis of the south and therefore replaced Montgomery as the capital of the Confederation in 1861 . In addition, the Tredegar Iron Works, the most important iron-producing company in the south, was located here . Equally exposed in terms of military strategy as Washington was, Richmond was fiercely contested during the years of the Civil War . As a result, the southern troops under General Lee surrendered only a week after the fall of the city on April 3, 1865. Richmond was almost completely destroyed by a devastating fire in the course of the siege. Allegedly, Union Confederate soldiers did not want to leave intact stocks of tobacco and weapons and therefore set the warehouses on fire. Richmond, like all of Virginia, took decades to recover from the political and economic collapse.

In 1888, when the first electric tram was set up in Richmond , the power supply developed by Frank Sprague was used for the first time , which helped electric trams to achieve a worldwide breakthrough. Because of its pantographs , the people called the railway the Broomstick-Train (Besenstielzug).

20th century

In the USA, private transport began to expand on a massive scale earlier than in Europe in the 1920s. The tram in Richmond, as in many other cities in the United States, was increasingly neglected. In 1949 the last tram was replaced by a bus line. In 1958, the first highway stretch from Virginia, the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike , was finally completed, which crosses Richmond near the city center and immediately next to the old main railway station, Main Street Station . In the course of the further expansion of the Interstate Highways , the route became a section of Interstate 95 .

In 2004 , after about three decades of dilapidation and vacancy, Main Street Station was renovated and is now used again for (local and regional) rail traffic. The building, whose fate was uncertain to the last, is one of the oldest surviving station buildings in the USA. The rail traffic with the long-distance trains of the Amtrak has been (and will be for the time being) since 1975 via the suburban Staples Mill Road Station .

economy

The metropolitan area of ​​Richmond generated an economic output of 80.7 billion US dollars in 2016, making it 42nd among the metropolitan areas of the United States. The unemployment rate in the metropolitan region was 3.0 percent and was thus below the national average of 3.8 percent (as of May 2018). The personal per capita income in 2016 was 51,685 dollars, which means that Richmond has an above-average income level.

Richmond is a major banking and financial center (seat of a Federal Reserve Bank ) and traditionally the seat of many law firms. The city is a reservoir for several companies in the US tobacco industry. These include the Altria Group and its subsidiary Philip Morris USA , as well as the raw tobacco dealer Universal Corporation . The US Smokeless Tobacco Company , now a subsidiary of Altria, is also based in Richmond.

Attractions

Richmond Cathedral at Monroe Park
  • Belle Isle, a small island in the James River, serves as a city park and is a popular destination for walkers and cyclists. A prison camp was set up on the island during the Civil War .
  • The Tyler Potterfield Memorial Bridge from the south overlooking the central business district of Richmonds
    Brown's Island as a starting point for various trails, including a. on the history of the inner-city canals , which go back to a design by George Washington . In addition, the south bank (Old Manchester) can be reached from there via the repaired Tyler Potterfield Memorial Bridge.
  • Virginia Museum of History & Culture in the Museum District
  • The Science Museum of Virginia close by
  • Larger than life statue of Robert E. Lee in Richmond
    The (controversial) Robert E. Lee Monument on Monument Avenue, which is also very worth seeing
  • Virginia State Capitol (seat of government since 1788, designed by Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States)
  • Museum of the Confederacy including the White House of the Confederacy (seat of the Southern President during the Civil War)
  • Valentine Museum (local history museum)
  • Tredegar Iron Works (modern industrial museum)
  • Edgar Allan Poe Museum (Poe spent much of his life in Richmond)
  • St. Johns Church (1741)
  • Monument Avenue (boulevard) with elaborate villas from the end of the 19th century
  • Cathedral of the Sacred Heart (1903-1906)
  • Statue of tennis player Arthur Ashe on Monument Avenue
  • Virginia Holocaust Museum , site of the Austrian Memorial Service
  • Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (including important Impressionist collection)
  • The Science Museum of Virginia in the old train station, an interactive science museum
Egyptian Building (2012)

The National Park Service identifies 17 National Historic Landmarks for Richmond as of December 2016, including the Virginia State Capitol , the Egyptian Building , the Governor's Mansion and the James Monroe Tomb . 220 buildings and sites in the city are listed in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) (as of November 13, 2018). In addition, Richmond has a long history of wall painting . Murals on various (historical, social, political) topics can be found throughout the city center.

Twin cities

sons and daughters of the town

such as:

Climate table

Richmond, Virginia
Climate diagram
J F. M. A. M. J J A. S. O N D.
 
 
82
 
8th
-4
 
 
80
 
10
-2
 
 
92
 
15th
2
 
 
75
 
21st
7th
 
 
98
 
25th
12
 
 
92
 
30th
17th
 
 
128
 
31
20th
 
 
112
 
31
19th
 
 
85
 
27
15th
 
 
90
 
22nd
8th
 
 
81
 
16
3
 
 
83
 
10
-1
Temperature in ° C ,  precipitation in mm
Source: National Weather Service, US Dept of Commerce ; wetterkontor.de
Monthly average temperatures and rainfall for Richmond, Virginia
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Max. Temperature ( ° C ) 7.6 9.6 15.3 21.1 25.4 29.5 31.3 30.6 27.2 21.5 16.3 10.1 O 20.5
Min. Temperature (° C) −3.5 −2.2 2.4 7.0 12.3 17.1 19.7 19.1 15.0 8.1 3.3 −1.2 O 8.1
Precipitation ( mm ) 82.3 80.3 91.7 75.2 97.5 91.9 127.8 111.8 84.8 89.7 80.5 82.8 Σ 1,096.3
Hours of sunshine ( h / d ) 5.3 6.3 7.2 8.5 9.2 10.0 9.5 8.9 7.9 6.7 5.9 5.1 O 7.5
Rainy days ( d ) 8.4 8.0 8.7 7.5 8.5 7.9 8.7 7.7 6.2 6.0 6.6 7.5 Σ 91.7
Humidity ( % ) 71 67 64 62 70 73 75 78 78 76 71 71 O 71.4
T
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
7.6
−3.5
9.6
−2.2
15.3
2.4
21.1
7.0
25.4
12.3
29.5
17.1
31.3
19.7
30.6
19.1
27.2
15.0
21.5
8.1
16.3
3.3
10.1
−1.2
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
N
i
e
d
e
r
s
c
h
l
a
g 		82.3
80.3
91.7
75.2
97.5
91.9
127.8
111.8
84.8
89.7
80.5
82.8
  Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

literature

  • Gregg D. Kimball: American City, Southern Place: A Cultural History of Antebellum Richmond. University of Georgia Press, Atlanta 2003, ISBN 978-0-8203-2546-0 .

Web links

Commons : Richmond  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ US Decennial Census . Retrieved October 7, 2012
  2. ^ US Department of Commerce, BEA, Bureau of Economic Analysis: Bureau of Economic Analysis. Retrieved July 4, 2018 (American English).
  3. ^ Richmond, VA Economy at a Glance. Retrieved July 5, 2018 .
  4. ^ US Department of Commerce, BEA, Bureau of Economic Analysis: Bureau of Economic Analysis. Retrieved July 5, 2018 (American English).
  5. ↑ List of NHL by State . National Park Service , accessed November 13, 2018.
  6. ↑ Search mask database in the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed November 13, 2018.