Chesterfield County is a county located just south of Richmond in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The county's borders are primarily defined by the James River to the north and the Appomattox River to the south. Its county seat is Chesterfield Court House.
Chesterfield County was formed in 1749 from parts of Henrico County. It was named for Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, a prominent English statesman who had been the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
Richmond (/ˈrɪtʃmənd/ RITCH-mənd) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Virginia. Incorporated in 1742, Richmond has been an independent city since 1871. It is the fourth-most populous city in Virginia, with a population of 226,610 at the 2020 census. The Richmond metropolitan area, with over 1.37 million residents, is the third-most populous metropolitan area in Virginia and 44th-largest in the United States.
Richmond is located at the James River's fall line, 44 mi (71 km) west of Williamsburg, 66 mi (106 km) east of Charlottesville, 91 mi (146 km) east of Lynchburg and 92 mi (148 km) south of Washington, D.C. Surrounded by Henrico and Chesterfield counties, Richmond is at the intersection of Interstate 95 and Interstate 64 and encircled by Interstate 295, Virginia State Route 150 and Virginia State Route 288. Major suburbs include Midlothian to the southwest, Chesterfield to the south, Varina to the southeast, Sandston to the east, Glen Allen to the north and west, Short Pump to the west, and Mechanicsville to the northeast.
State Route 150 (SR 150) is a state highway in the U.S. state of Virginia. Known as Chippenham Parkway, the state highway runs 15.19 miles (24.45 km) from Interstate 95 (I-95) and SR 895 in Bensley north to Parham Road and River Road near Tuckahoe in Henrico County. SR 150 is a four- to six-lane circumferential highway that connects the Chesterfield County suburbs of Richmond with western Henrico County and, via SR 895, eastern Henrico County and Richmond International Airport. The highway is a freeway except for a short stretch east of SR 147 in Richmond. SR 150 has junctions with all of the radial highways south of the James River, including I-95, U.S. Route 1 (US 1), US 301, US 360, US 60, and SR 76.
State Route 288 is a primary state highway in the U.S. state of Virginia. It is a freeway-standard partial beltway around the southwest side of the Richmond, Virginia metropolitan area in portions of Goochland, Powhatan, and Chesterfield counties. SR 288 was officially dedicated as the World War II Veterans Memorial Highway in 2004.
Midlothian (/mɪdˈloʊθiən/ mid-LOH-thee-ən) is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Chesterfield County, Virginia, United States. Settled as a coal town, Midlothian village experienced suburbanization effects and is now part of the western suburbs of Richmond, south of the James River in the Greater Richmond Region. Because of its unincorporated status, Midlothian has no formal government, and the name is used to represent the original small Village of Midlothian and a vast expanse of Chesterfield County in the northwestern portion of Southside Richmond served by the Midlothian post office.
The Village of Midlothian was named for the early 18th-century coal mining enterprises of the Wooldridge family. Incorporated in 1836, their Mid-Lothian Mining and Manufacturing Company employed free and enslaved people to do the deadly work of digging underground. Midlothian is the site of the first commercially-mined coal in the Colony of Virginia and North America.
Chesterfield Court House is an unincorporated community and former census-designated place that is the county seat of Chesterfield County, Virginia, United States. It was a census-designated place (CDP) at the 2000 census, but has not been delineated as a CDP since then. The Chesterfield County Courthouse and Courthouse Square are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The area is also home of the Chesterfield County Government Complex.
State Route 895 (SR 895), also known as the Pocahontas Parkway and Pocahontas 895, is a controlled-access toll road in the U.S. state of Virginia. It connects the junction of Interstate 95 and State Route 150 in Chesterfield County with Interstate 295 near Richmond International Airport in Henrico County, forming part of a southeastern bypass of Richmond. Due to a quirk in the evolution of the road, the long-planned designation of Interstate 895 could not be used. (Another former I-895 is now a boulevard in The Bronx, New York, signed as New York State Route 895.)
Richmond is located on the Fall Line of the James River. The 8.8-mile (14.2 km) roadway features the costly high-level Vietnam Veterans Memorial Bridge over the shipping channel of the navigable portion of the tidal James River downstream from the deepwater Port of Richmond to allow ample clearance for ocean-going vessels to pass under. Two people were killed in accidents during the construction of the bridge.
Bensley is a census-designated place (CDP) in Chesterfield County, Virginia, United States. It is an inner suburb of Richmond. The population was 5,971 at the 2020 census. Bensley Community building is inside of Bensley park. The community building is outside of Bensley, setting in walking distance of the CDP. The community is an old village with no active government. The community is over 100 years old. A new police substation in the village is next to the old Bensley Bermuda Rescue Squad, near DuPont Spruance.
State Route 76 (SR 76) is a controlled-access toll road in the U.S. state of Virginia. Known as the Powhite Parkway (first word officially pronounced /ˈpaʊ.haɪt/, similar to Powhatan), the state highway runs 13.04 miles (20.99 km) from SR 652 near Midlothian north to Interstate 195 (I-195) in Richmond. SR 76 connects SR 288, U.S. Route 60 (US 60), and SR 150 in Chesterfield County with I-195 and SR 195 west of Downtown Richmond. The highway includes a pair of mainline barrier toll plazas and ramp toll plazas at most interchanges, all of which accept E-ZPass. SR 76 is maintained by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) in Chesterfield County and the Richmond Metropolitan Authority in the city of Richmond. The Richmond section of the freeway was constructed in the early 1970s; the highway was extended to its current terminus in Chesterfield County in the late 1980s.
The Southside of Richmond is an area of the Metropolitan Statistical Area surrounding Richmond, Virginia. It generally includes all portions of the City of Richmond that lie south of the James River, and includes all of the former city of Manchester. Depending on context, the term "Southside of Richmond" can include some northern areas of adjacent Chesterfield County, Virginia in the Richmond-Petersburg region. With minor exceptions near Bon Air, VA, the Chippenham Parkway forms the border between Chesterfield County and the City of Richmond portions of Southside, with some news agencies using the term "South Richmond" to refer to the locations in Southside located in the city proper.