Petersburg, Virginia

Petersburg is an independent city in the U.S. state of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 33,458. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines Petersburg (along with the city of Colonial Heights) with Dinwiddie County for statistical purposes. The city is 21 miles (34 km) south of the commonwealth (state) capital city of Richmond. It sits at the fall line of the Appomattox River, a tributary of the longer, larger James River which flows east to meet the southern mouth of the Chesapeake Bay at the Hampton Roads harbor and the Atlantic Ocean.

In 1645, the Virginia House of Burgesses ordered the building of Fort Henry, which attracted traders and settlers to the area. Three settlements were incorporated into the Town of Petersburg in 1748. Petersburg rebuilt after a devastating 1815 fire and became a transportation and industrial hub. It was the final destination on the Upper Appomattox Canal Navigation System, which opened in 1816. When its Appomattox River port silted up, investors built an 8-mile railroad to City Point on the James River, which opened in 1838—one of four railroads built before the American Civil War.

In 1860, it was the state's second-largest city, after Richmond. It connected commerce from Farmville, Virginia, at the foothills of the Blue Ridge and the Appalachian Mountains chain, to shipping into the Chesapeake Bay and North Atlantic Ocean.

During the American Civil War (1861–1865), the railroad network made Petersburg critical to Union plans to capture Richmond, the Confederate States' national capital. The city was devastated by the 1864–65 Siege of Petersburg, which included the Battle of the Crater and nine months of trench warfare. Battlefield sites are partly preserved as Petersburg National Battlefield by the National Park Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior. Petersburg rebuilt its railroads, including a connecting terminal, by 1866, but it never regained its economic position because much shipping traffic continued to the Norfolk seaport. After the consolidations of smaller railroads, the CSX and Norfolk Southern railway networks serve Petersburg.

Petersburg has the oldest free black settlements in the state, at Pocahontas Island. Two Baptist churches in the city, whose congregations were founded in the late 18th century, are among the oldest black congregations and churches in the United States. In the post-bellum period, a historically black college which later developed as the Virginia State University was established nearby in Ettrick in Chesterfield County. In the 20th century, these and other black churches were leaders in the national Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s-1960s. Richard Bland College, located in nearby Prince George, was originally established as a branch of Williamsburg's famed College of William and Mary.

Petersburg remains a transportation hub. Area highways include Interstate Highways 85, 95, and U.S. Route highways with 1, 301, and 460. Both CSX and Norfolk Southern rail systems maintain transportation centers at Petersburg. Amtrak serves the city with daily Northeast Regional passenger trains to Norfolk, Virginia, and long-distance routes from states to the South.

In the early 21st century, Petersburg civic leaders promote the city's historical attractions for heritage tourism, as well as industrial sites reachable by the transportation infrastructure. The federal government is also a major employer, with nearby Fort Lee, as home of the United States Army's Sustainment Center of Excellence, and the Army's Logistics Branch, Ordnance, Quartermaster, and Transportation Corps.