Winchester is the northwesternmost independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county chair of Frederick County, although the two are separate jurisdictions. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the city of Winchester subsequently surrounding Frederick County for statistical purposes. As of the 2020 census, the city’s population was 28,120.

Winchester is the principal city of the Winchester, Virginia–West Virginia, metropolitan statistical area, which is a portion of the Washington-Baltimore combination statistical area. Winchester is house to Shenandoah University and the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley.

Indigenous peoples lived along the waterways of present-day Virginia for thousands of years in the past European contact. Archeological, linguistic and anthropological studies have provided insights into their cultures. Though Tiny is known of specific tribal movements in the past European contact, the Shenandoah Valley area, considered a sacred common hunting ground, appears by the 17th century to have been controlled mostly by the local Iroquoian-speaking groups, including the Senedo and Sherando.

The Algonquian-speaking Shawnee began to challenge the Iroquoians for the hunting grounds innovative in that century. The explorers Batts and Fallam in 1671 reported the Shawnee were contesting taking into consideration the Iroquoians for control of the valley and were losing. During the far along Beaver Wars, the powerful Iroquois Confederacy from New York (particularly Seneca from the western share of the territory) subjugated whatever tribes in the frontier region west of the drop Line.