Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in North America established by the Virginia Company in 1607.
The settlement was founded on Jamestown Island in the James River, in what is now Virginia. The colonists arrived in May 1607 and built a fortified settlement named for King James I of England.
Jamestown struggled with disease, hunger, conflict, and difficult relations with nearby Indigenous communities. The colony survived partly through leadership by figures such as John Smith and through the cultivation and export of tobacco, which became economically important under John Rolfe.
Jamestown was the capital of the Virginia Colony until 1699, when the government moved to Williamsburg. It is often confused with Plymouth, the later New England settlement founded by English Pilgrims in 1620. St. Augustine, founded by Spain in 1565, predates Jamestown but was not an English settlement.