America's colonial capital — 301 acres of the 18th century, living and breathing
Colonial Williamsburg is the largest living history museum in the world — 301 acres of the colonial Virginia capital restored to its 18th-century appearance, with 88 original buildings and hundreds of reconstructed ones staffed by interpreters in period dress. The Capitol building, the Governor's Palace, and dozens of taverns, craftshops, and homes bring pre-Revolutionary America to vivid life. It sits on the Historic Triangle with Jamestown (first English settlement, 1607) and Yorktown (final battle of the Revolution) just miles away.
Williamsburg was the capital of colonial Virginia from 1699 to 1780, the most populous and prosperous of the thirteen colonies, and the place where the ideas of the American Revolution were forged — Patrick Henry's Stamp Act speech was delivered here, and Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and George Mason all served in the colonial legislature. In 1926 John D. Rockefeller Jr. began funding what became the largest historic preservation effort in American history, eventually restoring or reconstructing the entire 18th-century city centre.