table style="float:right;">|-###|### ###|-###|### Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, better known as Virginia Tech, is a public land grant _polytechnic university in Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S. Although it is a comprehensive university with many departments, the agriculture, engineering, architecture, forestry, and veterinary medicine programs from its historical polytechnic core are still considered to be among its strongest.

Founded as a military college, Virginia Tech is one of the few public universities in the United States which continues to maintain a corps of cadets (a full-time military training program.) Virginia Tech is one of the six senior military colleges (five are public, one private) due to the nature and presence of the corps of cadets.

The Virginia Tech campus is located in the New River Valley in the Valley and Ridge physiographic region of the Appalachian Mountains in southwestern Virginia, a few miles from the Jefferson National Forest in Montgomery County. The campus and school received increased international attention due to a mass shooting by a student on April 16, 2007.