Floyd County, Virginia

Floyd County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Floyd
Year Organized: 1831
Square Miles: 382

Court House:

P.O. Box 218
County Courthouse
Floyd, VA 24091-0218

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Floyd is named for Governor of Virginia John Floyd

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History

Floyd County, Virginia formed from Montgomery and Franklin Counties. The latter apparently contributed in 1872/73. [Virginia Counties: Those Resulting from Virginia Legislation, by Morgan Poitiaux Robinson, originally published as Bulletin of the Virginia State Library, Volume 9, January, April, July 1916, reprinted 1992 by Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, MD.]

Floyd County was named for John Floyd, governor of Virginia from 1830 to 1834. It was formed from Montgomery County in 1831, and part of Franklin County was added in 1873. Its area is 383 square miles, and the county seat is Floyd.

Geography

Floyd County has a land area of 987 square kilometers/383 square miles according to the United States Census Bureau in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwestern Virginia. The county seat, the town of Floyd, is 40 miles southwest of Roanoke on US 221. Buffalo Mountain, at 3,971 feet, is the highest point in the county.

Floyd County is situated atop a high plateau of the Blue Ridge Mountains which divides the eastward flowing from the westward flowing waters. With the high topography, no streams flow into Floyd County. The county is drained primarily by Little River and its tributaries which flow into New River below the Claytor Lake Dam and, in turn, by way of the Kanawha, the Ohio and the Mississippi, into the Gulf of Mexico. The headwaters of the south fork of the Roanoke River are in the northeastern part of the county.

Neighboring Counties:

IFranklin County, Virginia - east
Patrick County, Virginia - southeast
Carroll County, Virginia - southwest
Pulaski County, Virginia - northwest
Montgomery County, Virginia - northwest
Roanoke County, Virginia - north

Cities and Towns:

- Floyd (County Seat)

town

Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resource Guide

Counties: US Map

The history of our nation can be seen as a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names we've given our counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of our country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."

Penn Foster High School

Custom Search