Virginia State Route 40
State highway in southern Virginia, US

State Route 40 (SR 40) is a primary state highway in the southern part of the U.S. state of Virginia. It runs from SR 8 at Woolwine east to SR 10 at Spring Grove, about half the width of Virginia. It is the longest state-numbered (not U.S. or Interstate) route in Virginia.
Route description
SR 40 begins at SR 8 at the small community of Woolwine. It heads northeast along the eastern side of the Blue Ridge, crossing streams and foothills via a curving route. Around Endicott, the highway starts to turn east, away from the ridge, and straightens out as the terrain becomes flatter. Between Ferrum and Rocky Mount, SR 40 parallels the Norfolk Southern Railway's north–south Winston-Salem District. The route intersects U.S. Route 220 Business (US 220 Business) in downtown Rocky Mount and the newer US 220 bypass to the east, soon splitting from SR 122, which leads northeast to Bedford, and turning directly east. After it leaves Rocky Mount, SR 40 heads east, largely along a newer alignment that utilizes cuts and fills to provide a straight and level path. Approaching Gretna, it intersects the US 29 bypass, and then US 29 Business in downtown Gretna.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Virginia State Route 40” as state highway in southern Virginia, US. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as state highway in southern Virginia, US. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 30, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q2507675. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Virginia State Route 40” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.