Virginia's General Assembly held its first session in Jamestown in 1619 (House of Burgesses).

In 1699, the capital of the colony was moved from Jamestown to Williamsburg.

Following the American Revolution, Virginia's bicameral legislature (Senate and House of Delegates) began governing in 1776.

The image above depicts the second capitol that was completed in 1753 after the first building was destroyed by a fire in 1747.

In 1780, the General Assembly moved the capital to Richmond.  The Assembly met in a building then known as the Cunningham Warehouse, located on the corner of Cary and 14th Streets, until the Capitol could be built.

The Virginia State Capitol is the second oldest working Capitol in the United States, having been in continuous use since 1788 (Maryland has the oldest working Capitol, located in Annapolis).  The cornerstone of the Virginia State Capitol was laid on August 18, 1785; the building was completed in 1792.

Thomas Jefferson designed the central section and modeled it after the Maison Carrée in Nîmes, France.  Its most outstanding feature is an interior dome that is positioned twenty feet below an a-line roof and cannot be seen from the exterior.

Flanking wings were added to the Capitol between 1904 and 1906.  In 2007, a new underground addition opened under the South Lawn which includes a gift shop, exhibit space, and meeting rooms.

A life-size statue of George Washington is located in the Capitol Rotunda.  This sculpture by Jean Antoine Houdon is the only statue of Washington for which he posed.

The Capitol Rotunda also houses Houdon's statue of Marquis de Lafayette, carved from life, and the busts of the seven other Virginia-born presidents: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, and Woodrow Wilson.