State guide

Virginia Nature Guide

Virginia stretches from the Atlantic surf to the crest of the Blue Ridge, gathering three distinct landscapes into one state — the flat, water-laced Tidewater and Eastern Shore along the Chesapeake, the rolling red-clay Piedmont through the middle, and the forested ridges and high balds of the Blue Ridge and Appalachians in the west. That geography funnels great seasonal movements: the autumn hawk and monarch funnel at Kiptopeke on the Eastern Shore, wintering Snow Geese and waterfowl at Chincoteague and Back Bay, breeding warblers along Skyline Drive, and Bald Eagles patrolling the James and Rappahannock. From USDA zone 6a on the cold Blue Ridge to 8a in the mild Tidewater, the humid four-season climate runs warm and long in the lowlands and crisp and late in the mountains.