The Blacksburg-Christiansburg Metropolitan Statistical Area, formerly the Blacksburg-Christiansburg-Radford Metropolitan Statistical Area, is a

Metropolitan Statistical Area In the United States, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is a geographical region with a relatively high population density at its core and close economic ties throughout the area. Such regions are neither legally incorporated as a city or tow ...

(MSA) as defined by the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

Office of Management and Budget The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is the largest office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP). OMB's most prominent function is to produce the president's budget, but it also examines agency programs, pol ...

(OMB) located in the

New River Valley The New River Valley is a region along the New River in Southwest Virginia in the United States. It is usually defined as the counties of Montgomery (including the towns of Blacksburg and Christiansburg), Pulaski, Floyd, and Giles and the ...

of Southwest

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

. As of the 2020 census, the MSA had a population of 181,863 (a greater than 11.6 percent rise from the 2010 census population of 162,958). The MSA is dominated by the presence of

Virginia Tech Virginia Tech (formally the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and informally VT, or VPI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It also has educational facilities in six re ...

and Radford University. The area, known as the New River Valley (or NRV), has experienced tremendous growth in the last twenty years and continues to be among the fastest growing areas in Virginia. It is bordered by the

Allegheny Mountains The Allegheny Mountain Range (; also spelled Alleghany or Allegany), informally the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada and posed a significant barrier to land travel in less devel ...

to the North and the

Blue Ridge Mountains The Blue Ridge Mountains are a Physiographic regions of the world, physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsy ...

to the South, with the New River flowing through the valley itself. The central communities in the area consist of two

towns A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

and one

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

; state law draws a sharp distinction between cities, which are completely separate from counties, and towns, which are contained within counties. Blacksburg, the larger of the towns, is home to Virginia Tech, while Radford, the only city in the group, is home to Radford University. Christiansburg, a town which lies between Blacksburg and Radford, is the Montgomery County county seat and home to a branch of the

New River Community College New River Community College (NRCC) is a public community college in Dublin, Virginia, in the New River Valley of southwestern Virginia. It is one of the 23 colleges in the Virginia Community College System. NRCC's service region covers the coun ...

as well as hundreds of stores and restaurants and a historic downtown.

MSA components

''Note: Since a state constitutional change in 1871, all cities in

are independent cities that are not located in any county. The OMB considers these independent cities to be county-equivalents for the purpose of defining MSAs in Virginia.'' Three counties and one independent city are included in the Blacksburg-Christiansburg Metropolitan Statistical Area. *Counties ** Giles ** Montgomery ** Pulaski *Independent Cities ** Radford

Communities

Places with more than 35,000 inhabitants

* Blacksburg (Principal city)

Places with 10,000 to 30,000 inhabitants

* Christiansburg (Principal city) * Radford

Places with 1,000 to 10,000 inhabitants

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

* Elliston-Lafayette (

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the count ...

) * Fairlawn (census-designated place) * Merrimac (census-designated place) *

Narrows A narrows or narrow (used interchangeably but usually in the plural form), is a restricted land or water passage. Most commonly a narrows is a strait, though it can also be a water gap. A narrows may form where a stream passes through a tilted ...

* Pearisburg * Pembroke * Pulaski * Shawsville (census-designated place)

Places with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants

* Belview (census-designated place) * Glen Lyn * Rich Creek

Unincorporated places

Demographics

As of the

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...

of 2000, there were 151,272 people, 58,443 households, and 34,881 families residing within the MSA. The racial makeup of the MSA was 91.24%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...

, 4.34%

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

, 0.18% Native American, 2.44%

Asian Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...

, 0.03%

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the Pacific Islands. As an ethnic/racial term, it is used to describe the original peoples—inhabitants and diasporas—of any of the three major subregions of O ...

, 0.50% from

other races Other often refers to: * Other (philosophy), a concept in psychology and philosophy Other or The Other may also refer to: Film and television * ''The Other'' (1913 film), a German silent film directed by Max Mack * ''The Other'' (1930 film), a ...

, and 1.28% from

two or more races 2 (two) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 1 and preceding 3. It is the smallest and only even prime number. Because it forms the basis of a duality, it has religious and spiritual significance in many cultur ...

. Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 1.29% of the population. The median income for a household in the MSA was $31,446, and the median income for a family was $44,478. Males had a median income of $32,377 versus $22,605 for females. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or total income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population. Per capita i ...

for the MSA was $17,184.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blacksburg-Christiansburg metropolitan area Giles County, Virginia Montgomery County, Virginia Pulaski County, Virginia Radford, Virginia Southwest Virginia Western Virginia