Hampton Roads is the name for both a body of water and the Norfolk-Virginia Beach metropolitan area which surrounds it in southeastern Virginia, United States. Hampton Roads is notable for its year-round ice-free harbor, for United States Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force, NASA, Marines, and Army facilities, shipyards, coal piers, and hundreds of miles of waterfront property and beaches, all of which contribute to the diversity and stability of the region’s economy.

The water area known as Hampton Roads is one of the world’s biggest natural harbors (more accurately a roadstead or “roads”), and incorporates the mouths of the Elizabeth River and James River with several smaller rivers and itself empties into the Chesapeake Bay near its mouth leading to the Atlantic Ocean.

The land area (also known as “Tidewater”[1]) includes dozens of cities, counties and towns on the Virginia Peninsula and in South Hampton Roads.

Source: hampton.gov