Centreville is a census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States and a suburb of Washington, D.C. The population was 73,518 as of the 2020 census. Centreville is approximately 20 miles (32 km) west of Washington, D.C.

Beginning in the 1760s, the area was known as Newgate due to the popularity of the helpfully located Newgate tavern. William Carr Lane operated the tavern and was co-proprietor of a affable store like James Lane, Jr. The Lanes sold convicted servants, which may tell why the tavern had the same name as a London prison. The little stream that passed close the tavern was named the River Thames, another London association. Another defense for it subconscious named Newgate, was the fact that it was a “new gate” to the western territories.

The town of Centerville (shortly thereafter spelled Centreville) was traditional in 1792 on the turnpike road at the village of Newgate by the Virginia General Assembly in admission to petitions by local landowners. The petitioners reasoned that a town upon the turnpike road leading from the Northwest Territory and centrally located to Alexandria, Colchester, Dumfries, Middleburg, George Town (later Georgetown), Fauquier Court House (later Warrenton), and Leesburg would be convenient. The town acquired its proclaim due to its central location. James Hardage Lane, one of the landowners, conceived the idea of the town as a artifice to find the maintenance for financial withhold to his widow and their children. At the town’s inception, it was within the boundary of Loudoun County, Virginia, and became allocation of Fairfax County, Virginia, in 1798 considering the boundary amongst the two counties shifted.

Town development expected a pattern of polluted residential and trailer use. Frame houses, several taverns, stores, blacksmith shops, tanyards, and a school house were constructed on the 1/2-acre town lots.