Jamestown was established in 1607 as the first permanent English settlement in the future United States.
The settlement was founded in the Virginia Colony by the Virginia Company of London. Colonists arrived in May 1607 and built a fortified settlement on an island in the James River, which they named for King James I of England.
Jamestown was not the first European settlement anywhere in North America, nor was it the first English attempt. The Roanoke colonies preceded it but did not become permanent, while Spanish settlements such as St. Augustine were established earlier.
Jamestown became important to the development of English America. In 1619, Virginia’s House of Burgesses met there, creating one of the earliest representative legislative institutions in English North America. The settlement was abandoned as a town after the capital moved to Williamsburg in 1699.