However, in the 17th and early-to-mid 18th centuries, Scotch-Irish and later German American farmers gradually drove those Native Americans out of the area as the American frontier pressed westward. The Roanoke Valley was originally home to members of the Siouan-speaking Tutelo tribe. It is the primary population center of the Roanoke metropolitan area, which had a 2020 population of 315,251. At the 2020 census, Roanoke's population was 100,011, making it the largest city in Virginia west of the state capital Richmond.
It is located in Southwest Virginia along the Roanoke River, in the Blue Ridge range of the greater Appalachian Mountains, approximately 50 miles (80 km) north of the Virginia– North Carolina border and 250 miles (400 km) southwest of Washington, D.C., along Interstate 81.
ə ˌ n oʊ k/ ROH-ə-nohk) is an independent city in the U.S.
