For Amazon, Crystal City was an obvious choice.

With plenty of vacant properties and potential for redevelopment, the area gives the internet retailer a perch to sell more cloud storage services to the Department of Defense and other government agencies nearby. It is also minutes from Reagan National Airport, with many direct flights to Amazon’s main headquarters in Seattle. The neighborhood is walkable and just a few subway stops from downtown Washington and Capitol Hill. The area also has one of the country’s best-educated work forces, and the public school systems rank high.

Amazon had announced 14 months ago that it would take bids from North American cities to create a second headquarters with 50,000 jobs, but if Virginians were disappointed with getting only half of what they bargained for on Tuesday, they didn’t show it.

“First thing I want to say is ‘Wow!’” Brian Ball, Virginia’s secretary of commerce and trade, exclaimed into the mic at the news conference. The audience applauded and shouted “Woo!” in affirmation.

Mr. Northam said Virginia had to adjust some of its incentives with the announcement of only 25,000 jobs, but he wouldn’t elaborate.

Senator Mark Warner of Virginia also spent the day on a media tour, promoting the ripple effects of Crystal City’s partnership with Amazon. In a morning interview with Yahoo, he pumped his fists in the air and said the benefits of Amazon’s new offices would stretch into rural areas of the state.

“This is really a win for the whole region,” Mr. Warner, a Democrat, said in the interview. “It’s not just immediate jobs but the enormous amount of spinoffs and what I think that will do to spur entrepreneurial activity.”

Crystal City will anchor Amazon’s presence in the area, but the company’s offices will spill over into parts of the Pentagon City neighborhood and nearby Alexandria. Arlington and Alexandria officials branded the area as National Landing, a two-and-a-half-mile urban stretch connected by three Metro subway stations along the Potomac.