The Charleston Metropolitan Statistical Area, as defined by the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of th ...

, is an area consisting of three counties in

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the ...

, anchored by the city of Charleston. It is the largest metropolitan area entirely within the state of West Virginia. While the Huntington Metro Area is more populous, it spans three states (West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio), and the core county of the Charleston area,

Kanawha County Kanawha County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 180,745, making it West Virginia's most populous county. The county seat is Charleston, which is also the state capital. Kanawha Cou ...

, is more populous than the West Virginia portion of the Huntington area. Charleston is its largest and most populous city in the MSA. Cross Lanes is its most populous

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counterparts of incorporated places, suc ...

. As of the 2000 census, the MSA had a population of 309,635 (though new standards set on February 28, 2013 placed the population at 240,000). Prior to the 2000 Census, the Charleston MSA consisted of only two counties – Kanawha and Putnam (the latter of which is now considered part of the Huntington metropolitan area).

Rankings

The population of the Charleston MSA is ranked 151st out of the 363 MSA's. *The Charleston-Huntington TV Market is ranked 64th out of 210. *The Charleston MSA is ranked 181st out of the 297

Arbitron Nielsen Audio (formerly Arbitron) is a consumer research company in the United States that collects listener data on radio broadcasting audiences. It was founded as the American Research Bureau by Jim Seiler in 1949 and became national by merging ...

radio markets. *Out of 280 Metropolitan statistical areas ranked by per capita income, the Charleston MSA is ranked 106th. (Census 2000) *The MSA is 202 out of 280 ranked by median household income. (Census 2000)

Counties

In order of population:

Cities, towns, and other communities

Places with more than 40,000 inhabitants

* Charleston (Principal City)

Places with 5,000 to 15,000 inhabitants

* Cross Lanes (

) *

Dunbar Dunbar () is a town on the North Sea coast in East Lothian in the south-east of Scotland, approximately east of Edinburgh and from the English border north of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Dunbar is a former royal burgh, and gave its name to an ...

Nitro Nitro may refer to: Chemistry *Nitrogen, a chemical element and a gas except at very low temperatures, with which many compounds are formed: **Nitro compound, an organic compound containing one or more nitro functional groups, -NO2 **Nitroalkene, ...

(partial) * South Charleston * St. Albans

Places with 1,000 to 5,000 inhabitants

* Alum Creek (census-designated place) * Belle *

Chesapeake Chesapeake often refers to: *Chesapeake people, a Native American tribe also known as the Chesepian * The Chesapeake, a.k.a. Chesapeake Bay *Delmarva Peninsula, also known as the Chesapeake Peninsula Chesapeake may also refer to: Populated plac ...

* Clendenin * Coal Fork (census-designated place) * Culloden (census-designated place; partial) * Elkview (census-designated place) *

Madison Madison may refer to: People * Madison (name), a given name and a surname * James Madison (1751–1836), fourth president of the United States Place names * Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital of Wisconsin and the largest city known by this ...

* Marmet * Montgomery (partial) * Pinch (census-designated place) * Sissonville (census-designated place) * Upper Falls (census-designated place)

Places with less than 1,000 inhabitants

* Cedar Grove *

Clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay pa ...

* Danville *

East Bank Transjordan, the East Bank, or the Transjordanian Highlands ( ar, شرق الأردن), is the part of the Southern Levant east of the Jordan River, mostly contained in present-day Jordan. The region, known as Transjordan, was controlled by num ...

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popu ...

* Handley * Jefferson *

Pratt Pratt is an English surname. Notable people with the surname include: A–F * Abner Pratt (1801–1863), American diplomat, jurist, politician, lawyer * Al Pratt (baseball) (1847–1937), American baseball player * Andy Pratt (baseball) (born 19 ...

* Smithers (partial) *

Sylvester Sylvester or Silvester is a name derived from the Latin adjective ''silvestris'' meaning "wooded" or "wild", which derives from the noun ''silva'' meaning "woodland". Classical Latin spells this with ''i''. In Classical Latin, ''y'' represented ...

* Whitesville

Unincorporated places

Adonijah According to 2 Samuel, Adonijah ( he, , ''’Ǎḏōnīyyā''; "my lord is Yah") was the fourth son of King David. His mother was Haggith as recorded in the book of . Adonijah was born at Hebron during the long conflict between David and the ...

Ashford Ashford may refer to: Places Australia *Ashford, New South Wales *Ashford, South Australia *Electoral district of Ashford, South Australia Ireland *Ashford, County Wicklow *Ashford Castle, County Galway United Kingdom *Ashford, Kent, a town **B ...

* Bandytown * Barrett * Big Chimney *

Bim ''Bim'' is a 1974 Trinidad and Tobago film written by Raoul Pantin and directed by Hugh A. Robertson. It was described by Bruce Paddington as "one of the most important films to be produced in Trinidad and Tobago and... one of the classics of ...

* Bob White *

Bream Bream ( ) are species of freshwater and marine fish belonging to a variety of genera including '' Abramis'' (e.g., ''A. brama'', the common bream), '' Acanthopagrus'', ''Argyrops'', '' Blicca'', '' Brama'', '' Chilotilapia'', ''Etelis'', '' L ...

* Crede * Dille * Elk Forest * Emmons * Floe *

Foch Ferdinand Foch ( , ; 2 October 1851 – 20 March 1929) was a French general and military theorist who served as the Supreme Allied Commander during the First World War. An aggressive, even reckless commander at the First Marne, Flanders and Arto ...

* Hillsdale *

Independence Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the stat ...

Institute An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations ( research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes ca ...

* Julian *

Little Italy Little Italy is a general name for an ethnic enclave populated primarily by Italians or people of Italian ancestry, usually in an urban neighborhood. The concept of "Little Italy" holds many different aspects of the Italian culture. There are ...

* Mink Shoals * Nellis * O'Brion * Porter *

Racine Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ) (; 22 December 163921 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille as well as an important literary figure in the Western traditi ...

Rand The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is finan ...

* Swandale * Uneeda * Valley Fork *

Van A van is a type of road vehicle used for transporting goods or people. Depending on the type of van, it can be bigger or smaller than a pickup truck and SUV, and bigger than a common car. There is some varying in the scope of the word across th ...

* Washington Heights *

Wharton Wharton may refer to: Academic institutions * Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania * Wharton County Junior College * Paul R. Wharton High School * Wharton Center for Performing Arts, at Michigan State University Places * Wharton, ...

* Whetstone * Widen

Demographics

As of the

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses inc ...

of 2000, there were 309,635 people, 129,229 households, and 88,175 families residing within the MSA. New definitions from February 28, 2013 placed the population at 363,000. The racial makeup of the MSA was 93.25%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White ...

, 4.66%

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

, 0.21% Native American, 0.65% Asian, 0.02%

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the Pacific Islands. As an ethnic/ racial term, it is used to describe the original peoples—inhabitants and diasporas—of any of the three major subregions of O ...

, 0.17% from other races, and 1.04% from two or more races. Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 0.55% of the population. The median income for a household in the MSA was $29,222, and the median income for a family was $35,735. Males had a median income of $34,105 versus $20,448 for females. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or total income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population. Per capita i ...

for the MSA was $16,074.

Highways

Interstates

Interstate 77 Interstate 77 (I-77) is a north–south Interstate Highway in the eastern United States. It traverses diverse terrain, from the mountainous state of West Virginia to the rolling farmlands of North Carolina and Ohio. It largely supplants the ...

Interstate 79 Interstate 79 (I-79) is an Interstate Highway in the eastern United States, designated from I-77 in Charleston, West Virginia, north to Pennsylvania Route 5 (PA 5) and PA 290 in Erie, Pennsylvania. It is a primary thoroughfar ...

Interstate 64 Interstate 64 (I-64) is an east–west Interstate Highway in the Eastern United States. Its western terminus is at I-70, U.S. Route 40 (US 40), and US 61 in Wentzville, Missouri. Its eastern terminus is at an interchang ...

U.S. Highways

* U.S. Route 60 * U.S. Route 119 * U.S. Route 35

Appalachian Corridors

* Corridor G

WV state highways

Colleges and universities

University of Charleston The University of Charleston (UC) is a private non-profit university with its main campus in Charleston, West Virginia. The university also has a location in Beckley, West Virginia, known as UC-Beckley. History The school was founded in 1888 as ...

* West Virginia University Institute of Technology *

West Virginia State University West Virginia State University (WVSU) is a public historically black, land-grant university in Institute, West Virginia. Founded in 1891 as the West Virginia Colored Institute, it is one of the original 19 land-grant colleges and universitie ...

* Marshall University Graduate College * BridgeValley Community and Technical College * WV Junior College

Combined Statistical Area

The Charleston–Huntington–Ashland, WV–OH–KY Combined Statistical Area consists of the Charleston, WV Metropolitan Statistical Area, the Huntington–Ashland, WV–KY–OH Metropolitan Statistical Area, and the Portsmouth, OH Micropolitan Statistical Area. It spans 12 counties in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio. The population was estimated to be 675,000 as of 2013.

References

External links

The Charleston Area AllianceList of Micropolitan and Metropolitan areas defined by the U.S. Census Bureau
{{authority control Geography of Charleston, West Virginia Regions of West Virginia Boone County, West Virginia Clay County, West Virginia Kanawha County, West Virginia Lincoln County, West Virginia Putnam County, West Virginia Metropolitan areas of West Virginia