Northern Virginia, locally referred to as NOVA or NoVA, comprises several counties and independent cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The region radiates westward and southward from Washington, D.C., the nation's capital, and has a population of 3,257,133 people as of 2023 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, representing over a third of the state's total population. It is the most populous region in both Virginia and the regional Washington metropolitan area.[2][3][4]
Communities in the region form the Virginia portion of the Washington metropolitan area and the larger Washington–Baltimore metropolitan area. Northern Virginia has a significantly larger job base than either Washington, D.C. or the Maryland portion of its suburbs,[5] and is the highest-income region of Virginia, with several of the highest-income counties in the nation, including three of the ten highest counties for median household income, according to the 2019 American Community Survey.[6]