Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Mantua, VA

Mantua is a census-designated place in central Fairfax County, Virginia, an unincorporated bedroom community serving the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, not an incorporated city.

Mantua had a population of 7,503 in the 2020 census, up from 7,135 in the 2010 census.

Census Bureau QuickFacts counted about 2,661 households in Mantua in 2020-2024, averaging a notably large 3.08 people per household.

Most of the homes in Mantua were built between the 1950s and the 1980s, giving the community its quiet, tree-shaded suburban character between U.S. Route 50 and Little River Turnpike.

Mantua covers about 2.4 square miles, and Accotink Creek, a tributary of the Potomac River, flows through its northern part while Crook Branch flows through the south.

Mantua is bordered to the west by the city of Fairfax, to the north by Merrifield, and to the east by Woodburn.

Mantua students attend Mantua Elementary School, Frost Middle School and Carter G. Woodson High School in Fairfax County Public Schools.

Woodson High School, which serves Mantua families, was awarded the Virginia Department of Education's Highest Achievement Award for Exemplar Performance in early 2025.

Eakin Community Park along Accotink Creek is made up of a string of smaller parks including Mantua Park, and the roughly 40-mile Gerry Connolly Cross County Trail runs through the Accotink corridor by Mantua.

In the early 1990s Mantua was fouled by a 200,000-to-300,000-gallon underground petroleum leak from a nearby Star Enterprise tank farm, which led the company to pay more than $50 million in damages and buy dozens of homes and prompted Virginia to enact strict tank-farm monitoring rules.