Virginia | Capital, Map, History, & Facts | Britannica

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Western Virginia comprises three physiographically defined mountain provinces. From west to east, the first of these is the Appalachian Plateau, the smallest of the provinces, located in the southwestern tip of the state. The next two provinces run from northeast to southwest, generally paralleling the state’s western boundary. The Valley and Ridge province consists of linear ridges in its western segment and the Great Appalachian Valley (also known as the Great Valley) in its eastern region. The Blue Ridge province is mostly a region of rugged mountains, part of a range stretching southwestward from Pennsylvania to South Carolina. The state’s highest point, Mount Rogers, at an elevation of 5,729 feet (1,746 meters), lies in the Blue Ridge area.

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In central Virginia the Piedmont province (part of the larger Piedmont region of the eastern United States) consists of lower rolling hills, reaching from the Blue Ridge to the fall line, the place where rivers descend, often in rapids, from higher and geologically older regions onto the flatter coastal plains. To the east the Coastal Plain province—or Tidewater region—lies low between the fall line and the Atlantic coast. The province is deeply interlaced by tidal rivers and is dominated by the Northern Neck Peninsula, the Middle Peninsula, and the Virginia Peninsula—all west of Chesapeake Bay. East of the Chesapeake and separated from the rest of the state is the Eastern Shore, the southern tip of the Delmarva Peninsula, which Virginia shares with Delaware and with Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The Tidewater also contains the area south of the James River, including the Norfolk region and the Great Dismal Swamp, which spans 750 square miles (1,940 square km) and extends south into North Carolina.