Nottoway County
| Nottoway County, Virginia | ||
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 Location in the U.S. state of Virginia |
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 Virginia's location in the U.S. |
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| Founded | 1789 | |
| Named for | Nottoway people | |
| Seat | Nottoway | |
| Largest town | Blackstone | |
| Area | ||
| • Total | 316 sq mi (818 km2) | |
| • Land | 314 sq mi (813 km2) | |
| • Water | 1.7 sq mi (4 km2), 0.5% | |
| Population (est.) | ||
| • (2015) | 15,673 | |
| • Density | 49/sq mi (19/km²) | |
| Congressional district | 7th | |
| Time zone | Eastern: UTC-5/-4 | |
| Website | www |
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Nottoway County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 15,853. Its county seat is Nottoway. It is situated south of the James River, thus making it a part of the Southside Virginia Region.
Prior to the arrival of European settlers, the land that would become Nottoway County was inhabited by American Indians of the Nadowa tribe, an Iroquoian people. They lived along the county’s only river, the Nadowa, an Algonquian word meaning rattlesnake, and became associated with the area they inhabited. The name was anglicized to ‘Nottoway’, and from this the name of the county was derived. The people of this "Nottoway Tribe", now numbering between 400 and 500, call themselves Cheroenhaka, meaning "People At The Fork Of The Stream".
Before the county established its own government, it was known as Nottoway Parish, a district of Amelia County. Nottoway Parish became Nottoway County by legislative act in 1788. The county contained numerous early crossroads settlements connecting the new western frontier with the population centers of Petersburg and Richmond to the north and east and until recent times owed much of its prospertity to tobacco. First coming to Nottoway in the 1850s, railroad construction and associated industries eventually came to represent a major portion of business in the area. In fact, one of the county's larger towns, Crewe, owes its existence to the railroad siding established at Robertson's Switch in the 1880s. In recent decades, however, the decline of tobacco, the railroads, and Fort Pickett has presented the county, like much of Southside Virginia, with economic difficulties and lead many Nottoway families to seek jobs and homes in Richmond and other prospering cities in central Virginia.
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