Colonial Heights is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 18,170. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the City of Colonial Heights (along with the City of Petersburg) with Dinwiddie County for statistical purposes.

Colonial Heights is located in the Tri-Cities area of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).

Like much of eastern Virginia, the site of Colonial Heights was located within the Algonquian-speaking confederation known as Tenakomakah, ruled by Chief Powhatan, when the English colonists arrived at Jamestown on May 14, 1607. Captain John Smith's early map of Virginia testifies that the present area of Colonial Heights included the principal town of the Appamattuck subtribe, led by their weroance, Coquonasum, and his sister, Oppussoquionuske. In the aftermath of the Indian attacks of 1622 and 1644, the Appamattuck became tributary to England and relocated to nearby Ettrick, and its opposite bank, near Fort Henry (within modern-day Petersburg, Virginia).

The area including present-day Colonial Heights was made a part of "Henrico Cittie", one of 4 huge "incorporations" formed in the Virginia Colony in 1619 by the London Company. English colonists first settled in the Colonial Heights area in 1620. A small group sailed up the Appomattox River looking for clear land, and finally settled in an area where Swift Creek runs into the Appomattox River, which they named Conjurer's Neck. This confluence was formerly the residence of a Native American healer (known as a "conjurer") who was thought to have cast spells over the waters.

Shortly thereafter, Charles Magnor registered the first land patent in the area for 650 acres (2.6 km²), which he later developed into a plantation before selling it in 1634. That same year, by order of King Charles I of England, the Virginia Colony was divided into the 8 original shires of Virginia by the House of Burgesses, one of which was Henrico County, which included the future land of Colonial Heights.

In 1635, the English had a small town called Appamattucks near the "Old Towne" Creek, thought to be located near the intersection of Temple Avenue and Dimmock Parkway. Also in that year, Captain Henry Fleet and Francis Poythress built a small fort nearby, on "Fleet's Hill" just west of the current city, now occupied by the campus of Virginia State University.

During the period from 1677 to 1685, one of the area's historic landmarks was constructed with the building of the Old Brick House. Richard Kennon came to Virginia prior to 1670 and became a merchant of Bermuda Hundred. He represented Henrico County in the House of Burgesses. His son, Richard Kennon, Jr., was also a member of the House of Burgesses and married the daughter of Col. Robert Bolling, the emigrant, and his second wife, the former Anne Stith. Richard's sister, Mary Kennon, was married to Major John Fairfax Bolling, half-brother of Richard's wife. Major Bolling was the son of Col. Robert Bolling and his first wife Jane Rolfe, who was granddaughter of the early colonist John Rolfe and his Native American wife, Pocahontas. The Bollings lived at Cobb's, a plantation in eastern Chesterfield near Point-of-Rocks.

The plantation house built by Richard Kennon (later known as the "Brick House") is now thought to be the oldest permanent structure in Colonial Heights. One wall of the house survived a fire in 1879, and the rest was rebuilt.