Current Land Use areas for Essex County, VA.

Land use is a type of conservation measure wherein a portion of the county taxes on the property are deferred for as long as the land is maintained in the agreed upon state. If activities that are not permitted occur, then the landowner is responsible for five years' worth of the deferred taxes, as well as any applicable fees.There are 1,387 parcels in land use, but only 1,372 parcels identified in the GIS layer as land use. The remaining 15 are likely the result of tax parcel changes that have not yet been updated in the tax parcel web layer.

The National Agricultural Statistics Service Cropland Data Layer was clipped to within 1 mile of Essex County, VA and reclassified into the forest, shrubland, wetlands, agriculture, developed, water, and barren categories. The reason for the one mile buffer is to include tax parcels that spill over the county boundary.The Cropland Data Layer makes use of Landsat imagery from different times of the year to estimate crop or land use for that pixel.

Here is a brief description of each of the field names

LegalDescr: the legal description of the parcel

Zoning: The zoning code for the parcel. Note: there are slight differences in zoning codes within the Town of Tappahannock compared to the rest of the county.

TotalParc: Total Parcel Value as appraised in the Commissioner of the Revenue

TotalImp: The value of all the improvements in the parcel, as appraised in the Commissioner of the Revenue

TotalLand: The value of the land in the parcel, as appraised in the Commissioner of the Revenue

LegalAcre: Legal AcreageGISAcres: The acreage as calculated in ArcGIS Pro’s Calculate Geometry tool

OwnerName: This is the name of the first owner listed. To see additional owners, navigate to the property card using the web link.

Address: This is the 9-1-1 address for the property. If no 9-1-1 address has been assigned, the property will have an address of 0 Road Name. If multiple addresses are on the property, only one of them is listed here.

PrimaryUse: This is a designation of whether data is Residential (R), Vacant (V), Commercial (C), or has a Mobile Home (T), as well as an indication of the relative size of the property.

TaxJoinGIS: This field enables the parcel data to work with Vision's web map (which you can access from the property card)

TaxLookup: This field has all spaces removed to allow for easy searching of parcels within the webmap

WebLink: This navigates to the property data card in Vision, the data portal for the Commissioner of the Revenue. The home page for that portal is https://gis.vgsi.com/essexva/Search.aspx

PID: This is a number that is one of the ways data can be searched in Vision.GISJoin: This is a field that has the leading and trailing spaces removed to enable the joining of data within GISTaxLabel: This field has only one space between each portion of the tax map to allow for more convenient labelling on the map

Notes: Any special information needed for the parcel, including whether a parcel is split zoned or in the Historic Overlay Zone.

View maps of the population in Essex County and within a 50 mile drive of Tappahannock!

Tax map index for Essex County, Virginia.

Please read through this section of Essex County's draft Comprehensive Plan. You can do so in either the interactive StoryMap or through the pdf document. If you would prefer, you can obtain a paper copy from the County Zoning Office. Once you have finished, we would love it if you would give your feedback by writing a letter, emailing the County, or attending a public hearing on the Comprehensive Plan to give verbal feedback.

Flood hazard areas identified on the Flood Insurance Rate Map are identified as a Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA). SFHA are defined as the area that will be inundated by the flood event having a 1-percent chance of being equaled or exceeded in any given year. The 1-percent annual chance flood is also referred to as the base flood or 100-year flood. SFHAs are labeled as Zone A, Zone AO, Zone AH, Zones A1-A30, Zone AE, Zone A99, Zone AR, Zone AR/AE, Zone AR/AO, Zone AR/A1-A30, Zone AR/A, Zone V, Zone VE, and Zones V1-V30. Moderate flood hazard areas, labeled Zone B or Zone X (shaded) are also shown on the FIRM, and are the areas between the limits of the base flood and the 0.2-percent-annual-chance (or 500-year) flood. The areas of minimal flood hazard, which are the areas outside the SFHA and higher than the elevation of the 0.2-percent-annual-chance flood, are labeled Zone C or Zone X (unshaded). (https://www.fema.gov/glossary/flood-zones)Data obtained from FEMA Flood Map Service Center, Product ID NFHL_51_20230211 for the full state of Virginia, then cropped to Essex County, VA. The "Latest Study Effective Date" for the data is 02/09/2023. (https://msc.fema.gov/portal/advanceSearch#searchresultsanchor)

These are the 9-1-1 addresses in Essex County, Virginia as of July 1, 2025

This data was updated May 2, 2023

The 10 foot contour intervals were created in QGIS from the LiDAR DEM provided by the Virginia Geographic Information Network from Flight Year 2021

The Boundaries were updated on September 6, 2024 to comply with the Boundary Line Adjustment between Essex and King and Queen Counties ordered by the Circuit Court in Case Number CL24000137-00

The Educational Facilities in Essex County, Virginia layer was created by performing a Google Search of "Schools in Essex County, VA", and selecting each result that had a functioning website. The website requirement was a way to verify that they were still in operation. The search was performed on March 1, 2023.

Wear sunscreen and carry plenty of waterLet someone know where you will be and when you expect to returnPersonal Floatation Devices should always be worn on the waterDon't paddle alonePlease see the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources Boating Safety and Education pageYou can check the tide schedule through NOAA's Tides and Currents

Orient yourself to the unincorporated communities of Essex County!

The Boundaries were updated on September 6, 2024 to comply with the Boundary Line Adjustment between Essex and King and Queen Counties ordered by the Circuit Court in Case Number CL24000137-00

These districts are from the redistricting completed in December 2021

View land cover maps for each year from 2008 to 2023, as well as a graph showing the acreage of each land cover type each year. These land cover maps were created using data from the US Department of Agriculture National Statistics Service Cropland Data Layers (https://www.nass.usda.gov/Research_and_Science/Cropland/Release/index.php).

View the locations and rules for the areas of the county that are zoned either Business, Light Industrial, or Industrial

This data shows the non-irrigated capability class for soils from the Natural Resources Conservation Service SSURGO data (https://websoilsurvey.sc.egov.usda.gov/App/WebSoilSurvey.aspx). Data for Essex County was downloaded June 23, 2023, while the data for Caroline, King and Queen, and Middlesex Counties was downloaded July 5, 2023. The neighboring counties were necessary because the boundaries for Essex County in the web soil survey did not completely cover the extent of the county.The non-irrigated capability class is used by the Commissioner of the Revenue in land valuation calculations.