Port Royal is an incorporated town in Caroline County, Virginia, United States. The population was 170 at the 2000 census. Port Royal was established in the mid-17th century in the Colony of Virginia primary as a port on a navigable portion of the Rappahannock River for export of tobacco, Virginia's cash crop. Along an early stage road, it later became a crossroads along the busy modern highways of U.S. Route 17 and U.S. Route 301.