Best Web Design in Hampton, VA (2026)

Web Design for Hampton, Virginia

Hampton is one of the oldest continuously settled English-founded communities in the United States, dating to 1610, and today anchors the Virginia Peninsula within Hampton Roads. Its economy runs on the military and aerospace, home to Langley Air Force Base and NASA's Langley Research Center, where the 'Hidden Figures' mathematicians worked. Roughly 62 percent of the city's area is water, and its seafood-packing past earned it the nickname 'Crabtown.'

AppWT works with Hampton, VA businesses from Livonia, Michigan, mostly online and travelling as needed.

About Hampton

Also known as. Crabtown. part of Hampton Roads. city motto: 'From the Sea to the Stars'.

History. English settlers established a foothold at Kecoughtan/Old Point Comfort in 1610; Hampton claims status as the oldest continuously occupied English settlement in the U.S. St. John's church traces to 1610, and its present structure dates from 1728; it is billed as the oldest continuous English-speaking (Anglican) parish in the Americas. In August 1619 some of the first recorded enslaved Africans in English North America arrived aboard the ship White Lion near Old Point Comfort. The town was named in the late 1600s for Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, and organized as a town in 1705. British forces invaded and captured the area in 1813 during the War of 1812; Fort Monroe was completed in 1834 as the largest stone fort ever built in the U.S. During the Civil War, Union-held Fort Monroe became the site of the 'Grand Contraband Camp,' an early self-governing community of formerly enslaved people; Hampton consolidated with Elizabeth City County and Phoebus in 1952.

Local economy. Langley Air Force Base, the nation's first military installation dedicated to air power, is a cornerstone employer. NASA's Langley Research Center drives the region's aerospace research economy. Tourism and Fort Monroe (now a National Monument) are significant, alongside a historic fishing and seafood-processing sector that grew after the railroad arrived in the 1880s.

Culture and community. The Hampton Jazz Festival has run for more than 50 years, drawing top jazz, soul, blues, and pop performers. The Hampton Cup Regatta, first run in 1926, is billed as North America's oldest continuously run hydroplane/powerboat race, held on the Hampton River. The city hosts an annual Blackbeard Pirate Festival tied to its pirate history, and Buckroe Beach is a longtime waterfront gathering spot. Sports figures with Hampton roots include Basketball Hall of Famer Allen Iverson and NFL coach Mike Tomlin; Hampton University fields NCAA Division I 'Pirates' teams.

What makes Hampton distinct. After Blackbeard was killed off North Carolina in 1718, his severed head was displayed on a pole at the mouth of the Hampton River; the spot is still called Blackbeard's Point. About 62 percent of Hampton's total area is water. NASA Langley mathematicians Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson, later famous through 'Hidden Figures,' worked in Hampton. James Armistead Lafayette, often called America's first African American spy, provided intelligence that helped lead to Cornwallis's 1781 surrender at Yorktown. Educator Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskegee Institute, was a Hampton (Hampton Institute) student.

Hampton Landmarks and Local Life

• Fort Monroe National Monument (decommissioned as an Army post in 2011)
• Virginia Air and Space Center
• Hampton University - a historically Black university founded in 1868
• Emancipation Oak - where the Emancipation Proclamation was read in the South
• St. John's Episcopal Church (parish founded 1610; building from 1728)
• Hampton Coliseum