West Falls Church

West Falls Church is a census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. The population was 29,207 at the 2010 census.
Before 2010, West Falls Church was officially named Jefferson. Outside of the Jefferson Village neighborhood, “Jefferson” generally is not used locally to refer to the area bounding Falls Church city to the south and southwest that comprises the CDP. Likewise, “West Falls Church” is rarely used to describe the area but is usually applied to areas west of Falls Church city or near West Falls Church Metro station.[3] The bulk of it is made of subdivisions built in the 1940s and early 1950s, including Jefferson Village, Westlawn, Hillwood, Sleepy Hollow, Woodley, Raymondale and Broyhill Park.

Following the American Civil War, local blacks established prosperous communities in an area then called South Falls Church, along Tinner’s Hill and elsewhere. In 1887, white Falls Church residents successfully gerrymandered heavily black South Falls Church out of the town limits and shrank the area of the town by one third. It is speculated that the reason for the shrinking of the town limits was a fear of black power to swing local elections.[4] This was never reversed, and caused the boundary of the future City of Falls Church to follow South Washington Street.[5] The name South Falls Church subsequently fell out of use.