Hampton

Town in Rockingham County, southeastern New Hampshire; population (1990) 12,300. Hampton is located on the Atlantic Ocean and highway US 1, 16 km/10 mi south of Portsmouth. It includes Hampton village, and formerly included North Hampton (to the north) and Hampton Falls (west), which are now separate towns.

Originally an outpost of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Hampton has various light manufactures and grows fruit, dairy products, and market garden produce. Hampton Beach, a resort on the Atlantic, draws large numbers of summer visitors, chiefly from southern New Hampshire and the Boston area, providing much of the region's economic base, as well as its notorious weekend traffic jams.

Hampton

Independent city in southeastern Virginia; population (1990) 133,800. Hampton lies at the mouth of the James River, opposite Norfolk and just southeast of Newport News, on the northern side of Hampton Roads. Founded in 1610 by colonists from Jamestown, Hampton is the oldest continuously occupied settlement of English origin in the USA.

Hampton is a largely residential community, and also a beach resort, whose economy depends on the military installations at Langley Air Force Base (established as Langley Field, in 1916), NASA's Langley Research Center, and Fort Monroe. It was the site of a battle in 1775, and was burned both by the British during the War of 1812 and by Confederates during the Civil War. After the Civil War, it developed major fishing and seafood processing industries. The city is the site of Hampton University, founded as Hampton Institute in 1868 for the education of former slaves; its first classes were held during the Civil War, under the famous Emancipation Oak.