Sterling, Virginia, refers most specifically to a census-designated place (CDP) in Loudoun County, Virginia, United States. The population of the CDP as of the 2010 United States Census was 27,822. The CDP boundaries are confined to a relatively small area between Virginia State Route 28 on the west and Virginia State Route 7 on the northeast, excluding areas near SR 606 and the Dulles Town Center. A much wider region has a preferred mailing address of "Sterling, Virginia", per the United States Postal Service. Other localities included within this larger area include Arcola, Cascades, Countryside, Dulles, Dulles Town Center, Oak Grove, and Sugarland Run. The "Greater Sterling" region includes part of Washington Dulles International Airport and the former AOL corporate headquarters. Greater Sterling is also home to the National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office LWX (serving the Baltimore–Washington Metropolitan Area), as well as the Sterling Field Support Center, the National Weather Service test, research, and evaluation center for weather instruments. The following includes information covering both the CDP and the wider "Greater Sterling" region. History In the beginning of 1962, large farms made up the of what today is called Sterling Park. Route7, also known as Leesburg Pike, bordered what used to be Jesse Hughes's dairy farm. Hughes arrived in Loudoun County in the early 20th century and was a longtime head of the county's Democrats. Fred Franklin Tavenner, who was somewhat related to Benjamin Franklin, operated vast stretches of Sterling Farm at the southwest fringes of Sterling Park. Tavenner had purchased land from Albert Shaw Jr., who had inherited it from his father Albert B. Shaw, editor and publisher of the American Review of Reviews. One of Shaw's spreads, totaling , was called "The Experimental Farm" because it was one of the first area farms to receive a U.S. grant for applying "scientific methods", as Tavenner called them. According to Tavenner, refugees from the Soviet Union ran the farm while Shaw remained in New York City. Dulles International Airport and the extension of water and sewer lines to the airport began to change the landscape when construction started in 1959. Land prices rose from an average to . During the same year, Marvin T. Broyhill Jr. and his father made plans to develop land in the airport area under the company M.T. Broyhill & Sons Corporation. In late 1961, they decided to buy and incorporated Sterling Park Development Corporation