A recent series of studies has analyzed and identified the richest cities in various states. Some of those studies included finding the wealthiest cities in states that make up the Ohio River Valley. These included the richest cities in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky. Now, it is West Virginia’s turn to be investigated. The analysis covered 290 cities in the state in order to identify the richest cities in West Virginia. The way in which each city was evaluated and scored in the ranking is detailed below.
Read on to find out what the richest city in West Virginia is, plus the top 15 wealthiest cities in the state overall.
What Are the Richest Cities in West Virginia?
In order to put this list of the richest cities in West Virginia together, key financial data was sourced from the Census Bureau’s 2023 American Community Survey. Armed with these datasets, a four-factor scoring system was devised to help identify the wealthiest cities in West Virginia. The metrics that formed this scoring system included the median household income, mean (average) household income, median home value, and median property taxes paid.
When it comes to Census data, keep these things in mind: For certain factors, the Census numbers have upper limits, beyond which there are no exact figures. For example, for median household income, the Census Bureau has an upper limit of “$250,000+”. For median home value, the upper limit is “$2,000,000+”. For median property taxes paid, the upper limit is “$10,000+”. For these reasons, the mean household income dataset is crucial because the Census Bureau has exact figures for it. All four of these metrics were scored, added up, and then ranked by the cities’ combined scores.
Another thing to keep in mind is that what are termed cities here are categorized as “places”, census-designated places, by the Census Bureau. Thus, some cities on this list may be considered unincorporated communities, but are treated as individual cities by the Census Bureau’s designation of them as a place.
Below you’ll find a table detailing the top 15 richest cities in West Virginia and their respective dollar figures for each metric:
The No. 1 richest city in West Virginia is North Hills. This is a nice little suburb of Parkersburg, which lies along the Ohio River. It’s not a big town, with a population of 837 and only 299 households. North Hills has the highest median household income in West Virginia, at $143,125. The town’s average household income isn’t that much higher, at $159,658. According to Zillow, the median home value in North Hills is $307,724, which is definitely higher than most cities’ home values. Compared to other states and richest cities, the property taxes in North Hills, and West Virginia in general, are rather low. The median property taxes paid by each household is $1,680. On the employment front, the biggest industries by share of the workforce in North Hills are Health Care & Social Assistance (27.9% of the workforce), Educational Services (11.3% of the workforce), and Other Services, Except Public Administration (9.7% of the workforce).
The No. 2 richest city in West Virginia is Harpers Ferry, located on the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers, right next to the borders of both Maryland and Virginia. Harpers Ferry is known in American history as the site of John Brown’s raid on the Harpers Ferry arsenal, in 1859, in order to arm slaves for a revolt. The town is quite small, with just 150 households. Incomes here are very high for West Virginia. The median household income is $111,600, while the mean household income is $126,367, another narrow difference like in North Hills. The median home value reported in the Census data is $430,800, which is the second highest in the state. The median property taxes paid per household is also the second highest in the state, at $2,493.
Coming in at No. 3 on our list of the richest cities in West Virginia is Cheat Lake, a CDP east-northeast of Morgantown. Cheat Lake is far larger than the No. 1 and No. 2 richest cities, having 4,257 total households. For such a large place, having a median household income of $111,379 is impressive, especially for West Virginia, considering the state’s median income is $57,917. The average household income is significantly higher, at $161,668, which suggests the distribution of incomes is skewed towards higher brackets. The median home value, according to Zillow, is $382,257, which is up 1.5% over the past year. Compared to that home value, the property taxes are fairly low. The median paid per household is $1,714.
A little under 2.4% of cities, seven out of 290, have median household incomes of $100,000 or greater. Unlike in many other of these studies, the richest cities in West Virginia are more scattered than in other states. The majority of previous states analyzed saw many, if not most, of their wealthiest places concentrated around a couple of major cities.