Essential English phrases

The city's own shorthand for itself, and now effectively its brand — it is on beer cans, murals, bumper stickers and job adverts. Saying 'Richmond' is fine; recognising RVA is how you show you have been paying attention.

The low ground by the river below downtown. It was the second-largest slave-trading district in the United States, and the city is building a memorial campus there. It is also the part of town that floods. Both facts matter and locals will expect you to know the first one.

The big Victorian neighbourhood west of downtown, named for the way its streets fan out from Monroe Park. Row houses, porches, VCU students and the densest walkable grid in the city.

Virginia is not a state, it is a Commonwealth — one of four in the US. It makes no legal difference at all, and everyone here says it anyway. State agencies are 'Commonwealth of Virginia' on the letterhead.

Richmond belongs to no county. Virginia's cities are constitutionally separate from the counties around them, which is why 'Richmond' and 'Henrico' are different governments with different tax rates on the same street sometimes. Nearly every independent city in the United States is in Virginia.

The geological boundary where the Piedmont drops to the coastal plain, which is why the James River runs whitewater through the middle of the city and why the city is here at all. It is the reason Richmond has class III and IV rapids downtown — genuinely unusual for an American city.

Northern Virginia — the Washington DC suburbs two hours up I-95. Same state, different economy, different housing market and, for cars, the only part of Virginia that requires emissions testing. Richmonders define themselves against it.

The annual personal property tax on your vehicle, billed by the city. Richmond charges USD 3.70 per USD 100 of assessed value, due 5 June, with partial state relief on the first USD 20,000. Newcomers from most states have never paid a tax on a car they already own, and this one arrives every year.

The local vehicle licence some Virginia localities require on top of state registration, bought from the Commissioner of the Revenue or the city finance department rather than from the DMV. Ask about it in your first month; the DMV will not tell you.

The Boulevard Bridge over the James, so called because it cost a nickel when it opened in 1925. It still charges a toll and it still has that name, which tells you something about how Richmond holds onto things.

GRTC's bus rapid transit line running east–west along Broad Street. The whole GRTC network, the Pulse included, is zero fare — you board at any open door and pay nothing.

White house rolls from the bakery of a beloved local grocery chain that sold its stores in 2010 and whose baked goods refused to die. They appear at every Richmond gathering. Bringing them is a shortcut to belonging.

911 for emergencies; RVA311 is the city's non-emergency services line for potholes, bins, water and everything else the city government does. 804 is the area code for Richmond and central Virginia.