Highland County, Virginia Map
Explore Highland County, Virginia with this interactive street and satellite map. Browse all 3 cities and towns in Highland County below.
Interactive Map of Highland County, Virginia
| County | Highland |
| State | Virginia (VA) |
| County Seat | Monterey |
| Country | United States of America |
| Latitude | 38.32179 |
| Longitude | -79.582547 |
| Cities & Towns | 3 |
| Area Codes | 540 |
About Highland County, Virginia
Highland County occupies the high, rugged vertebrae of the Allegheny Mountains, a region where the earth rises sharply into narrow ridges and deep, sequestered valleys. Unlike the broader basins to the east, this landscape is defined by its verticality and the cold, rushing headwaters of the Potomac and James rivers, which carve their way through limestone and shale. The air here holds a distinct, metallic thinness, sharpened by an elevation that keeps the frost lingering on the northern slopes long after the lowlands have turned to spring. Throughout the day, the light seems to catch on the jagged limestone outcrops, turning the gray stone into something almost translucent, as if the mountains themselves were breathing in the wide, pale sky.
Highland County emerged from the colonial frontier in the mid-nineteenth century, carved out of older jurisdictions to provide a seat of government for the settlers who had pushed westward into the high plateaus. These pioneers, primarily of Scots-Irish descent, brought with them a hardiness suited to the timber-rich slopes and isolated hollows. The county seat was established where the terrain allowed for a small gathering of stone and timber, a place chosen for its access to the mountain passes that served as the primary arteries for trade and transit. Through the disruptions of war and the slow drift of the decades, the community maintained a stubborn autonomy, holding to its boundaries with the quiet, deliberate resolve of a people who have learned to measure time by the harvest rather than the clock.
Agriculture remains the primary pulse of the region, defined by the grazing of cattle on high-altitude pastures and the seasonal production of maple syrup, which draws a sweetness from the dormant trees at the very end of winter. Life here moves with the deliberate weight of heavy boots on gravel, a rhythm governed by the necessity of tending to livestock and the unpredictable temper of mountain weather. The silence of the county is not an absence of sound, but a dense, living presence that amplifies the rustle of wind through the hemlocks and the distant, lonely call of a hawk. In the evening, when the shadows stretch long and blue across the valley floors, the woodsmoke rising from chimneys signals a return to the hearth, grounding the inhabitants in a landscape that demands both labor and a profound, watchful respect.
Cities and Towns in Highland County
About This Highland County Map Page
This page provides an interactive map of Highland County, Virginia alongside links to detailed street maps for 3 cities and towns. The county seat is Monterey. Each city and town map page includes live weather, local news and precise GPS coordinates.
The Search Maps button below the county map opens USGS topographic maps and aerial imagery as base layers, with a labelled U.S. National Grid (USNG) overlay, a distance and bearing tool, and a single-fix GPS readout giving your USNG grid reference and latitude and longitude.
Location data is sourced from the USGS GNIS database and verified by coordinates, not name matching alone.
| Page generated | September 2026 |
| Location data | USGS GNIS database; coordinates matched to 2020 US Census records |
