Virginia Beach is an independent city located in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of Virginia, on the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Although Fairfax County is the most populous jurisdiction in the state of Virginia, Virginia Beach is the most populous city in the state, as well as the 39th largest city in the United States, with a population of 437,994 according to the 2010 Census.

Virginia Beach is the easternmost city of the Hampton Roads (or "Tidewater") area that makes up the core of the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC MSA. This area, known as "America's First Region", also includes the independent cities of Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Suffolk, as well as other smaller cities, counties and towns of Hampton Roads.

Virginia Beach is a resort city with miles of beaches and hundreds of hotels, motels, and restaurants along its oceanfront. Every year the city hosts the East Coast Surfing Championships as well as the North American Sand Soccer Championship, a beach soccer tournament. It is also home to several state parks, several long-protected beach areas, three military bases, a number of large corporations, two universities, Edgar Cayce's Association for Research and Enlightenment, and numerous historic sites. Near the point where the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean meet, Cape Henry was the site of the first landing of the English colonists, who eventually settled in Jamestown, on April 26, 1607.

Virginia (ⁱ/vərˈdʒɪnjə/), officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state located in the South Atlantic region of the United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, which provide habitat for much of its flora and fauna. The capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond; Virginia Beach is the most populous city and Fairfax County the most populous political subdivision. The Commonwealth's population is over eight million.

The area's history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607 the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent New World English colony. Slave labor and the land acquired from displaced Native American tribes each played a significant role in the colony's early politics and plantation economy. Virginia was one of the 13 Colonies in the American Revolution and joined the Confederacy in the American Civil War, during which Richmond was made the Confederate capital and Virginia's northwestern counties separated to form the state of West Virginia. Although the Commonwealth was under conservative single-party rule for nearly a century following Reconstruction, both major national parties are competitive in modern Virginia.

Colin Flaherty (born June 25, 1955) is a writer, talk show host and the owner of an on-line ad agency and public relations company.

His by-line has appeared in dozens of languages around the world, and he has been a guest on numerous local and national TV and radio programs on the NPR, ABC, CBS, Fox and other networks.

Most recently his by-line appeared in Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

In June 2011, he won First Place in the Washington Post Spy Novel Writer's Contest. The contest was judged by Washington Post editor and best selling author David Ignatius, who said Flaherty's work was his "strong favorite," and it "advances the story and twists it in a new and interesting direction, very deftly."

His winning entry was the subject of a radio show on WDEL.

He is best known for doing a story for the San Diego Reader that secured the release of Kelvin Wiley after showing that he was unjustly convicted for assaulting his ex-girlfriend.

He is the owner of Flaherty Communications, a public relations, marketing communications and online advertising company.