Richmond-Petersburg is a region located in a central part of the state of Virginia in the United States. It straddles the fall line, the meeting zone of the Coastal Plain and the Piedmont on the James River at Richmond and the Appomattox River at Petersburg, each of which were established as ports in the 17th century.

Political Subdivisions

The area is composed of four independent cities, Richmond, Petersburg, Hopewell, and Colonial Heights, and nine counties, Charles City, Chesterfield, Dinwiddie, Goochland, Hanover, Henrico, New Kent, Powhatan, and Prince George. The area also includes the town of Ashland, which is located in Hanover County.

Population

The Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) which includes Petersburg, Hopewell and adjacent counties is home to approximately 1,033,407 Virginians.

The region is located approximately equidistant from Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads, and Lynchburg. The area is home to the state's center of gravity of population--which, in 1980 was located thirty miles west of Richmond near the Powhatan-Goochland County border.

Transportation

The area benefits from an excellent position in reference to the state's transportation network.

Interstate highways and expressways

Several of the most heavily traveled highways in the state transverse the area, which includes the junctions of Interstate 64 (which runs east-west), and Interstate Highways 85 and 95 (which run north-south). The area is also served by a comprehensive network of Interstate bypasses and spurs, and several non-interstate expressways. Several of these local roads are funded by tolls, although tolls have long-been been removed from the area's first limited access highway, the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike, which opened in 1958, and now forms a portion of I-95 and I-85. I-295 opened in 1992, was the last segment of Virginia's interstate system and forms an eastern bypass of Richmond and Petersburg.

Rail, Seaport, and Airport facilities

The Richmond-Petersburg region is also located along several major rail lines operated by CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern Corporation.

The area has three passenger stations served by Amtrak. The Department of Rail and Public Transportation of the State of Virginia has studies underway for extending high speed passenger rail service to the Virginia Peninsula and South Hampton Roads areas with a rail connection at Richmond to service along both the Northeast Corridor and the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor. [1].

Another project, known as Transdominion Express, would extend from Richmond west to Lynchburg and from Washington, DC (Alexandria) south via an existing Virginia Railway Express route to Manassas, extending on south to Charlottesville, Lynchburg, Roanoke and Bristol on the Tennessee border. [2]

An international deepwater terminal is located at the Port of Richmond on the James River which is navigable for shipping to Hampton Roads and the Atlantic Ocean. Richmond International Airport is located in Henrico County.

Economy

The applicable Metropolitan Statistical Area for the Richmond-Petersburg region is the Richmond, VA MSA, which includes some additional counties in Virginia beyond the region defined in this article. The Richmond MSA provides employment for a total of approximately 472,000 workers. In order of the number of workers, the major employment categories of the region are services; retail trade; manufacturing; state government; finance, insurance and real estate; local government; construction; wholesale trade; transportation and public utilities and federal government. Within the manufacturing category of some 63,700 employees, the largest category of workers is in the tobacco industry. Other important manufacturing categories are chemicals, printing and publishing, paper, and wood manufactures.

This economic diversity, which is typical of the entire Richmond-Petersburg region, helps to insulate it from hardship due to economic fluctuation in particular sectors of the economy. The region's central location also allows it to benefit from growth in other regions of Virginia and the state as a whole.