Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement established in Virginia in 1607.
The Virginia Company founded Jamestown on an island in the James River on May 14, 1607, under a charter from King James I. The settlement became the capital of the Virginia Colony and served as an important base for English colonization in North America.
Jamestown faced disease, food shortages, conflict, and harsh environmental conditions. The settlement survived partly through changes in leadership and the development of tobacco cultivation, which became a major economic foundation for Virginia. The colony’s representative House of Burgesses first met at Jamestown in 1619.
Jamestown is often confused with Plymouth, founded by English Pilgrims in 1620, or Roanoke, an earlier English colony that disappeared. St. Augustine, founded by Spain in 1565, predates Jamestown, so Jamestown is more precisely described as the first permanent English settlement in Virginia rather than the first European settlement in what is now the United States.