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LOCATION - The city of Charlottesville is in Albemarle County, Central Virginia, at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the head of the Rivanna River, and the junction of I-64 and US Route 29. I-64 connects the east coast with the western part of Virginia while US-29 runs from north to south. Washington D.C. is 110 miles northeast on US-29; Gainesville, FL is to the south. I-64 runs east to Richmond (70 miles away) and Virginia Beach; west to Frankfort and Topeka KS. US-250 feeds into the city from Waynesboro (about 25 miles away) and Staunton to the west. Lynchburg is 64 miles to the south and Philadelphia, PA, 266 miles northeast, via Baltimore on I-95. Crozet VA is just 15 miles to the west; other nearby cities include: Lake Monticello (13.6 miles), Scottsville (16 miles), Stanardsville (18.4 miles), Gordonsville (21.7 miles), Dooms (25.7 miles), Crimora (25.8 miles) and Elkton (27.4 miles).
TRANSPORTATION/AIRPORTS - The Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport (CHO) is about 8 miles north of the city centre on US Route 29. It offers 60 daily non-stop flights to and from Charlotte, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York/LaGuardia, Washington/Dulles, Cincinnati, and Atlanta. CHO is served by Delta Connection, United Express (Atlantic Coast Airlines), and US Airways Express (Piedmont Airlines). Smaller regional airports are the Shenandoah Valley (about 32 miles away) near Waynesboro, and the Lynchburg Regional Airport, about 70 miles east. Greyhound Bus provides service, and the city of Charlottesville has an Amtrak station; CSX and Norfolk-Southern railways are available for shipping cargo. The Charlottesville Transit Service supplies an extensive bus service throughout the city and some parts of the surrounding county; all buses are wheelchair accessible and outfitted with bike racks. CTS also provides a free trolley service (Route 11) between Downtown, The Corner and the University of Virginia that runs every 15 minutes
BRIEF HISTORY - Three U.S. Presidents once lived in or adjacent to Charlottesville. This is just one of many reasons that some individuals choose to live in the City of Charlottesville. Browse my Charlottesville houses for sale today to see why.
In 1762 the Virginia General Assembly created Charlottesville as a courthouse town to serve the newly formed Albemarle County Virginia, placing it along the important route between Richmond and the coast and the Shenandoah Valley to the west. (The new town was named after Queen Charlotte-Sophia, the wife of England's King George III.) The courthouse and its surrounding square of shops and taverns provided the civic hub; churches were slow to arrive. Entrepreneurs began to set up shop along Main Street several blocks below the courthouse, but the town didn't really begin to grow until the establishment of the University of Virginia in 1819 and the coming of the railroad in the mid-1800s.
President Thomas Jefferson had his home at Monticello, secretary of state James Madison lived nearby at Montpelier, and James Monroe (minister, statesman, and eventual President) lived at Ash Lawn-Highland. All three of these splendid homes are open to visitors today.
Incorporation came in 1888, along with the first of eight annexations of the surrounding countryside that the city has enacted. Virginia was beginning to recover from the Civil War, and the city of Charlottesville enjoyed a period of growth and rising prosperity that extended through the turn of the century. Rail and trolley lines as well as paved roads lead to more suburbs and further annexations, especially around the University, which Jefferson had purposely established away from the city. In the late 1950's and 60's a new traffic bypass was built to divert traffic from the downtown area, and in the mid-1970's, city abolished car traffic on Main Street downtown, creating a lively mall area. An absence of zoning constraints led to the growth of strip developments on the town's periphery. Today, Charlottesville encompasses a land area of 10.4 square miles and is surrounded by farms and vineyards.
POPULATION - The city of Charlottesville has a population of just over 45,000.
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