Herndon

Herndon is a town in Fairfax County, Virginia, in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area of the United States. The population was 23,292 at the 2010 census, which makes it the largest of three incorporated towns in the county.  According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 4.2 square miles (10.9 km²), all of it land. Just over two acres of land in the town is technically in Loudoun County.

Herndon is part of the Dulles Technology Corridor, which Fortune magazine named the "Netplex" because of the presence of the headquarters of such companies as AOL, XO Communications, Verizon Business (formerly MCI, formerly WorldCom, originally UUNET), and Network Solutions, which began as the INTERNIC – the registry where every domain name was once administered.

Some of those companies are within Herndon. Others have Herndon mailing addresses, but are located in unincorporated Fairfax or Loudoun counties, e.g., south of the Dulles Toll Road. These include Deltek and K12.

The town is organized as an incorporated town by the Commonwealth of Virginia, and is governed by an elected Mayor and Town Council who serve on a part-time basis. The current Mayor is Lisa C. Merkel, who was first elected to Council in 2010 and served as Vice Mayor until her election as Mayor in 2012. The Mayor chairs the Council and heads the executive branch of the town government. The Police Department, independent of the county police department, is headed by Colonel Maggie DeBoard. and consists of 56 sworn officers along with the assistance of the Herndon Police Citizen Support Team. The Herndon Police Department achieved national recognition on November 8, 1986 by becoming the 7th police agency in Virginia and the 42nd police agency in the United States to be accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies.

Herndon contains the Herndon Depot Museum, the site of "Mosby's Raid on Herndon Station", which was a Civil War skirmish that took place on St. Patrick's Day, 1863. Also within the town is The Herndon Centennial Golf Course, the Herndon ArtSpace (a community art gallery), community center with basketball and racquetball courts and multiple baseball fields, and an aquatic center. Adjacent to the community center is Bready Park, with indoor tennis courts. Additionally, every residence within the town borders is within a mile or less of a public park. Herndon is home to a professional live theatre, NextStop Theatre, which produces a variety of plays, musicals, concerts, and educational theatre programming each season.

Nearby attractions include the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum which houses the Enola Gay B-29 Superfortress, a Concorde supersonic passenger airplane, an SR-71A Blackbird plane and the Space Shuttle Discovery.  Frying Pan Farm Park, Sully Plantation, Reston Town Center, Mount Vernon, Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, Colvin Run Mill, Aldie Mill, Oatlands Plantation, Manassas National Battlefield Park and the Washington and Old Dominion Trail are also nearby.

*Wikipedia