City of Norfolk, Virginia

Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States of America. Norfolk is one of Virginia's largest incorporated cities; as of the 2000 census, the city population was 234,403. The 2004 census estimate indicates that the city's population has since risen to 237,835.

Norfolk is located on the Elizabeth River, in Hampton Roads, a large natural harbor located at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. Norfolk is one of seven cities that together constitute the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, officially known as the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC MSA. Norfolk is considered to be the historic, urban and cultural center of Hampton Roads, surrounded by the independent Virginia municipalities of Virginia Beach, Hampton, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Newport News and Chesapeake.

The city has a long history as a strategic military and transportation point. Norfolk is home to both the Norfolk Naval Base, the world's largest naval base, and corporate headquarters of the Norfolk Southern Railway, one of North America's principal Class I railroads. As it is surrounded by multiple bodies of water, Norfolk has many miles of riverfront and bayfront property, and is linked with its neighbors by an extensive network of Interstate highways, bridges, tunnels, and bridge-tunnel complexes.

Norfolk is a major military center. With Portsmouth (directly across the Elizabeth River, housing the Norfolk Naval Shipyard), it forms an extensive naval complex. The headquarters of the 5th Naval District, the Atlantic Fleet, the 2nd Fleet, and the Allied Command Transformation are at Sewell's Point. The Norfolk Navy Base is the largest naval base in the United States and includes a naval air station and other facilities. Several vessels of the Navy have been named USS Norfolk after the city. The battleship USS Wisconsin is berthed at Nauticus, The National Maritime Center.

General Douglas MacArthur is buried in the city; there is a small museum for him, and a major shopping mall across the street from his burial site is named for him. The city is home to Old Dominion University, Eastern Virginia Medical School, and Norfolk State University (fifth largest black university in America); Virginia Wesleyan College, a private liberal arts college, shares its eastern border with the neighboring city of Virginia Beach. The city's public school system comprises 5 high schools, 8 middle schools, 34 elementary schools, and 9 special-purpose/preschools. In 1996 Granby High School became the only school in Norfolk to offer the International Baccalaureate Program curriculum to incoming freshmen. Norfolk Public Schools recently received a 2005 National Academic Award for having one of the most outstanding public school systems in the nation. Norfolk Academy, founded in 1728, is the city's (and one of the nation's) oldest private school.

 Norfolk is linked with its neighbors through an extensive network of arterial and Interstate highways, bridges, tunnels, and bridge-tunnel complexes, notably the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel which enters Norfolk at Willoughby Spit. The major east-west routes are Interstate 64, U.S. Route 58 and U.S. Route 460. The major north-south routes are U.S. Route 13 and U.S. Route 17.

Norfolk and the rest of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area (including Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Newport News, Hampton, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Williamsburg and Poquoson, Virginia) are served by Norfolk International Airport and Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport.

The Hampton Roads Beltway (I-64 and its spurs I-264, I-464, and I-664) makes a loop around Norfolk, much like that of the Capital Beltway around Washington, DC.

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