The Walt Disney Company announced last night that it had abandoned its chosen site in Northern Virginia for a sprawling American history theme park, a project that was reviled by historians and environmentalists and hotly debated at local planning boards as well as the United States Senate. The company said it would seek another site for the development, possibly in Virginia.

Peter S. Rummell, president of the Disney Design and Development Company, made it clear in a statement that the company had bowed to a torrent of criticism, in part out of a fear that opposition could delay the project. "Despite our confidence that we would eventually win the necessary approvals, it has become clear that we could not say when the park would be able to open, or even when we could break ground," he said.

The company planned to build the park, Disney's America, 35 miles southwest of Washington, near the site of the First Battle of Bull Run, the first big conflict of the Civil War, and in a region that contains many battle sites from that war. The proposed park, which was to be the centerpiece of a 3,000-acre, $650 million development, inspired fervent opposition from some historians who said it could blot out important Civil War sites and from environmentalists who said that it would bring crowding, road congestion and smog to an area where all these problems have mushroomed in recent years.

In a meeting late yesterday afternoon, Disney officials told Gov. George F. Allen and other state officials who had backed the project that they had decided against the rural site at Haymarket, in Prince William County. The Governor had said the project would provide 19,000 jobs and $47 million in annual revenue for the state. He was the driving force behind a $163 million bond issue that would have paid for new roads to serve the area surrounding the park.