Moving to Richmond Metro
Richmond metro sits at a genuine highway crossroads (I-95, I-64, I-295) with its own international airport physically located inside Henrico County rather than Richmond city, and carries a real, current, and honestly ongoing public conversation about Confederate-era history that anyone relocating here should understand as part of the region's present, not only its past.
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Learn moreRichmond International Airport Sits in Henrico, Not the City
A genuinely useful fact for anyone mapping this move: Richmond International Airport physically sits inside Henrico County, in Sandston -- not in the City of Richmond itself, despite carrying the city's name. I-95 and I-64 cross directly through the metro, with I-295 forming an outer beltway connecting Henrico, Chesterfield, and Hanover without routing through downtown.
Inland Flood Risk From Remnant Tropical Systems
This entire region sits inland with no hurricane-landfall or storm-surge risk, but real, repeated, well-documented flooding from remnant tropical systems moving up the James River is part of the region's actual history and shared across Richmond city, Henrico, and Midlothian: Hurricane Camille's 1969 remnants (a 28.6-foot James River crest, 153 Virginia deaths), Hurricane Agnes's 1972 remnants (a 36.5-foot crest, direct flooding of Shockoe Bottom), and Tropical Storm Gaston's 2004 remnants (a National Weather Service-labeled '1,000-year' rainfall event) all directly affected this region -- worth understanding for any property near the James River or its tributaries, including Chesterfield's Swift Creek Reservoir, where a flood-damaged water treatment plant prompted a roughly $21 million flood-wall project.
A Genuinely Current Public History Conversation
Richmond's Confederate-capital history remains an active, unresolved civic conversation rather than a settled chapter -- five Confederate statues came down from Monument Avenue in 2020-2021, a new Emancipation and Freedom Monument was dedicated in 2021, and as of an April 2024 report the city still had no finalized plan for what to do with Monument Avenue going forward. Anyone relocating into Richmond city specifically should expect this to remain a live local topic, not a closed one.
Key takeaways
- Richmond International Airport physically sits inside Henrico County, not the City of Richmond -- a genuinely useful distinction for anyone mapping a move here.
- I-95, I-64, and the I-295 outer beltway give this metro a real highway-crossroads structure connecting all its member localities without routing through downtown.
- This region carries no hurricane-landfall risk, but real, repeated James River flooding from remnant tropical systems (Camille 1969, Agnes 1972, Gaston 2004) is part of its documented history.
- Richmond city's Confederate-history reckoning remains a genuinely current, unresolved civic conversation -- worth understanding as part of the city's present character, not only its past.
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