History

In 1963, the city of South Norfolk and the rural region of Norfolk County merged to become the new city of Chesapeake, Virginia. While that means Chesapeake was incorporated less than four decades ago, the city shares with the rest of Hampton Roads in a historical heritage as rich as any in the country, beginning nearly four centuries ago.

In 1607, English ships sailed through the harbor and up the James River to nearby Jamestown, at the western edge of current-day Hampton Roads. There they established the first permanent English settlement in the New World. 168 years later, Chesapeake was the site of an important Revolutionary War battle - the Battle of Great Bridge. Chesapeake's Dismal Swamp Canal , first envisioned by George Washington in 1763, is now on the National Registry of Historic Places and part of the scenic Intracoastal Waterway. The entire Hampton Roads area was a major strategic focus during the Civil War, with the "Battle of the Ironclads" taking place in the Port of Hampton Roads and forever changing the face of naval warfare. Today, Hampton Roads is the home to the world's largest naval base.

The same things that made Chesapeake and the rest of Hampton Roads such an important site historically also make it ideal for business today. Its location - at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, on the world's largest natural harbor, at the center of the Eastern Seaboard - simply couldn't be more ideal.