Prince William County, Virginia


Prince William County lies beside the Potomac River in the Commonwealth of Virginia. At the 2020 census, the population was 482,204, making it Virginia's second most populous county. The county seat is the independent city of Manassas. A part of Northern Virginia, Prince William County is part of the Washington metropolitan area. In 2020, it had the 24th highest income of any county in the United States. The county is named after Prince William, Duke of Cumberland, the youngest son of King George II.

History

At the time of European colonization, the native tribes of the area that would become Prince William County were the Doeg, an Algonquian-speaking sub-group of the Powhatan tribal confederation.

17th century

When John Smith and other English explorers ventured to the upper Potomac River, beginning in 1608, they recorded the name of a village that the Doeg inhabited as Pemacocack. It was on the west bank of the Potomac River, about 30 miles south of present-day Alexandria. Unable to deal with European diseases and firepower, the Doeg abandoned their villages in the area by 1700.

18th century

As population increased in the area, the General Assembly of the colony of Virginia split Stafford County, Virginia in 1730, and added a section which had previously been part of King George County in order to create Prince William County. The county was named for Prince William, Duke of Cumberland, the third son of King George II. The area encompassed by the 1731 act creating Prince William County originally included all of what later became the counties of Arlington, Fairfax, Fauquier, and Loudoun; and the independent cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Manassas, and Manassas Park.
Fairfax County was split from Prince William County in 1742, and first Loudoun and then the incorporated town of Alexandria would later be split from Fairfax County. Fauquier County was created from western Prince William County in 1759.
In 1790, Prince William County's population was 58% white; most of the remainder were enslaved African Americans. The county had been an area of tobacco plantations, but planters were changing to cultivate mixed crops due to soil exhaustion and changes in the market. In the first two decades after the Revolution, the number and percentage of free blacks increased in Virginia as some whites freed their slaves, based on revolutionary ideals.

19th century

On March 19, 1892, two white men, Lee Heflin and Joseph Dye, were lynched in Haymarket. They had been convicted of the murder of a girl and sentenced to death, but the mob did not want to wait for the legal system. The men were hung from trees at the edge of woods; then the mob shot into their bodies.
The Washington Post reported, "mob law...is a dangerous thing to encourage. There is too much of it already throughout the country, and it spreads like a contagion so long as public sentiment tacitly approves it." It was unusual that white men were lynched; in Virginia and the rest of the South, black men were overwhelmingly the victims of lynching, the violence by which whites maintained dominance. The county was rural and agricultural for decades.

20th century

Into the early 20th century, the population was concentrated in two areas, one at Manassas, and the other near Occoquan and Woodbridge along the Potomac River, which was an important transportation route. Beginning in the late 1930s, suburban residential development began, and new housing was developed near the existing population centers, particularly in Manassas.
In 1960, the population was 50,164. Continued suburbanization and growth of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area caused that to increase rapidly in the following decades. There was expansion of federal, military and commercial activities in Northern Virginia in the late 20th century. By 2000, this was the third-most populous local jurisdiction in Virginia. From 2000 to 2010, the population increased by 43.2%. During this period the county became minority-majority: the new majority is composed of Hispanic, African American, and Asian. In 2012 it was the seventh-wealthiest county in the country. The estimated population of 2014 is more than 437,000.
In 1994, The Walt Disney Company bought extensive amounts of land in Haymarket for a proposed Disney's America theme park. Local resistance to the resort, because of its perceived adverse effects on the historic Manassas Battlefield, led to its end as a viable idea. William B. Snyder, a local businessman, convinced Disney to sell the property to him. Snyder, in turn, sold off most of the land to developers, except for the donated to the National Capital Area Council of the Boy Scouts, who used the land to create Camp Snyder for Cub Scouts.

21st century

The Marine Corps Heritage Museum and the Hylton Performing Arts Center opened in the 21st century. The American Wartime Museum is also to be located in this county. During the commemoration of the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War, reenactment of the First and Second Battles of Manassas was planned.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of, of which is land and is water. It is bounded on the north by Loudoun and Fairfax Counties; on the west by Fauquier County; on the south by Stafford County; and on the east by the Potomac River. The western half of the county is occupied by a green belt known as the rural crescent.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the independent cities of Manassas and Manassas Park with Prince William County for statistical purposes:
NameArea Population
2000 Census		Population
2010 Census		Population
2020 Census
Manassas
Manassas Park
Prince William County
Totals

Adjacent jurisdictions

Racial and ethnic composition

2020 census

As of the 2020 census, the county had a population of 482,204. The median age was 35.7 years. 26.7% of residents were under the age of 18 and 10.5% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 96.8 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 94.4 males age 18 and over.
The racial makeup of the county was 41.6% White, 20.2% Black or African American, 0.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 10.4% Asian, 0.1% Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, 13.8% from some other race, and 13.1% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race comprised 25.2% of the population.
95.4% of residents lived in urban areas, while 4.6% lived in rural areas.
There were 153,745 households in the county, of which 42.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them and 22.5% had a female householder with no spouse or partner present. About 17.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 5.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.
There were 158,525 housing units, of which 3.0% were vacant. Among occupied housing units, 71.6% were owner-occupied and 28.4% were renter-occupied. The homeowner vacancy rate was 0.9% and the rental vacancy rate was 4.7%.

2010 census

As of the census of 2010, there were 402,002 people, 137,115 housing units, and 130,785 households residing in the county. The population density was. There were 137,115 housing units at an average density of.
Also according to census figures, there were 130,785 households in Prince William County as of April 1, 2010. According to the Census Bureau's 2009 American Community Survey, 76.1% of the county's households are occupied by families,. This represents a decrease of 4.6 percentage points since 1990, when 80.7% of households in the county were families. Approximately 42.2% of Prince William County's households are family households occupied by parents with their own children under 18 years of age.
According to the Census Bureau's 2009 American Community Survey, 29.3% of the total County population was under 18 years of age; approximately 6.5% was aged 65 and over. The median age of the population was 33.2 years. The 2009 American Community Survey also indicated that 50.0% of the county's population was male and 50.0% is female.
According to the 2009 American Community Survey, the 2009 median household income in Prince William County was $89,785. The per capita income for the county was $35,890. The 2009 American Community Survey reported that in 2009, 6.0% of Prince William County's population was living below the poverty line, including 7.7% of those under age 18 and 5.3% of those age 65 or over.

Economy

Top employers

According to the county's 2013 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers in the county are:
#Employer# of Employees
1Prince William County Public Schools1,000 and over
2U.S. Department of Defense1,000 and over
3Prince William County Government1,000 and over
4Walmart1,000 and over
5Morale, Welfare and Recreation1,000 and over
6Sentara Healthcare1,000 and over
7Wegmans Food Markets500 to 999
8Minnieland Private Day School500 to 999
9Northern Virginia Community College500 to 999
10Target Corporation500 to 999

Prince William and neighboring Loudoun County are home to millions of square feet of data centers.