Newport News is an independent city in the U.S. state of Virginia. At the 2020 census, the population was 186,247. Located in the Hampton Roads region, it is the 5th most populous city in Virginia and 140th most populous city in the United States.

Newport News is included in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. It is at the southeastern subside of the Virginia Peninsula, on the northern shore of the James River extending southeast from Skiffe’s Creek along many miles of haven to the river’s mouth at Newport News Point upon the port of Hampton Roads. The Place now known as Newport News was in imitation of a portion of Warwick County. Warwick County was one of the eight native shires of Virginia, formed by the House of Burgesses in the British Colony of Virginia by order of King Charles I in 1634.

In 1881, fifteen years of short development began below the leadership of Collis P. Huntington, whose extra Peninsula Extension of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway from Richmond opened occurring means of transportation along the Peninsula and provided a extra pathway for the railroad to bring West Virginia bituminous coal to harbor for coastal shipping and worldwide export. With the further railroad came a terminal and coal piers where the colliers were loaded. Within a few years, Huntington and his friends also built a large shipyard. In 1896, the additional incorporated town of Newport News, which had briefly replaced Denbigh as the seat of Warwick County, had a population of 9,000. In 1958, by mutual comply by referendum, Newport News was consolidated taking into account the former Warwick County (itself a cut off city from 1952 to 1958), rejoining the two localities to approximately their pre-1896 geographic size. The more widely known state of Newport News was selected as they formed what was after that Virginia’s third largest independent city in population.

With many residents employed at the expansive Newport News Shipbuilding, the joint U.S. Air Force–Army installation at Joint Base Langley–Eustis, and extra military bases and suppliers, the city’s economy is no question connected to the military. The location upon the harbor and along the James River facilitates a large boating industry which can accept advantage of its many miles of waterfront. Newport News after that serves as a junction in the middle of the rails and the sea later the Newport News Marine Terminals located at the East stop of the city. Served by major east–west Interstate Highway 64, it is associated to supplementary cities of Hampton Roads by the circumferential Hampton Roads Beltway, which crosses the harbor upon two bridge-tunnels. Part of the Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport is in the city limits.