Find a Particular Place in Virginia

Just where in Virginia is South Hill Elementary School or Lonesone Pine Country Club, anyway?

Google and other online mapping tools help find many "populated places" in Virginia, but some queries will produce no answer.

Maybe you are reading about the Civil War, and trying to find the location of the Battle of Cedar Mountain. You might have found a reference in an old family document, and are trying to match the historical words with modern-day places. If the old letter said "crossed Little River; rode 12 miles to Leesburg" - would you like to discover the location of Little River and Leesburg, and learn that you could follow modern-day Route 15 to trace a path similar to one your ancestor rode years ago?

A particularly rich source of information is the Geographical Names Information System (GNIS) of the US Geological Survey. You can go straight to the Online Database and search ("query") using a place name.

You can narrow the search to just Virginia - highly recommended for a common place name such as "Little River." There are separate streams named "Little River" in Virginia, running through the counties of Augusta, Goochland/Hanover, Grayson, Loudoun, Floyd/Montgomery, and Russell.

Geographic Names Information System interface

Links


Mapping Virginia
Virginia Places