page_title: Newport News, Virginia
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Newport News, Virginia / Geography
caption_attribution_description: English: Rotated to aprox. mag. north. Newport News is seen at the upper left.
context_page_description: Newport News is an independent city in the U.S. state of Virginia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 180,719. In 2019, the population was estimated to be 179,225, making it the fifth-most populous city in Virginia.
  Newport News is included in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. It is at the southeastern end of the Virginia Peninsula, on the northern shore of the James River extending southeast from Skiffe's Creek along many miles of waterfront to the river's mouth at Newport News Point on the harbor of Hampton Roads. The area now known as Newport News was once a part of Warwick County. Warwick County was one of the eight original shires of Virginia, formed by the House of Burgesses in the British Colony of Virginia by order of King Charles I in 1634. The county was largely composed of farms and undeveloped land until almost 250 years later.
  In 1881, fifteen years of rapid development began under the leadership of Collis P.
context_section_description: Newport News is located at 37°4′15″N 76°29′4″W (37.071046, −76.484557). According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 120 square miles (310 km²), of which 69 square miles (180 km²) is land and 51 square miles (130 km²) (42.4%) is water.
  The city is located at the Peninsula side of Hampton Roads in the Tidewater region of Virginia, bordering the Atlantic Ocean. The Hampton Roads Metropolitan Statistical Area (officially known as the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC MSA) is the 37th largest in the nation with a 2014 population estimate of 1,716,624. The area includes the Virginia cities of Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Poquoson, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Williamsburg, and the counties of Gloucester, Isle of Wight, James City, Mathews, Surry, and York, as well as the North Carolina counties of Currituck and Gates.  Newport News serves as one of the business centers on the Peninsula. The city of Norfolk is recognized as the central business district, while the Virginia Beach oceanside resort district and Williamsburg are primarily centers of tourism.
  Newport News shares land borders with James City County on the northwest, York County on the north and northeast, and Hampton on the east. Newport News shares water borders with Portsmouth on the southeast and Suffolk on the south across the Hampton Roads Area, and
  Isle of Wight County on the southwest and west and Surry County on the northwest across the James River.
caption: Newport News, Hampton, Portsmouth and Norfolk, Virginia, from space, July 1996. Newport News is seen in the upper-left quadrant.
exif: {"Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "38", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0200", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0101", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "639", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "631"}