Wirt County area

Population and density of Wirt County

The Census Bureau estimates that 4,879 people lived in Wirt County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,899 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #55 of 55 in West Virginia. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 5,196, the population has declined by 317 (−6.1%), compared with −1.5% for West Virginia as a whole.

With 232.5 square miles of land, that is 21 people per square mile (8.1 per km²), placing Wirt County #2,286 nationally for density and #49 in West Virginia. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the West Virginia median is 45. Put another way, there are about 30 acres of land per resident.

U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 population estimates. Estimates are revised each year and are not decennial census counts. Density divides the whole population by the whole county’s land area, so it describes an average, not how settlement is distributed within the county. Population sources and methods.

Cities and towns in Wirt County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Wirt County. Together they are home to 676 people (13.9%); the other 4,203 (86.1%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Elizabeth town, with 676 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

Wirt County is an outlying county of the Parkersburg-Vienna, WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 87,264 residents on 599 square miles of land; Wirt County accounts for 38.8% of the land and 5.6% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #338 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #379 by population. It belongs to the Parkersburg-Marietta-Vienna, WV-OH Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

8 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Wirt County; 2 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

2525225270261382614126143261522616026180

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Lighter codes have less than half of their land in this county. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Wirt County

Wirt County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Wirt County. The largest neighbor is Roane County (483.6 mi²) and the smallest is Calhoun County (279.3 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Wirt County forms a block of 2,278.2 mi² of land, of which it holds 10.2%.

How big is Wirt County compared with U.S. states?

Wirt County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 4.4 times as much. West Virginia’s county land could hold about 103 areas the size of Wirt County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 15.2 miles (24.5 km) on each side. Real county shapes are rarely square, so this is a scale reference rather than a width or driving distance.

State figures are the sums of each state’s county-equivalent land measurements in the same Census release, so states and counties are compared on the same basis. Published state totals can differ slightly because of rounding. Compare all states · Counties bigger than entire states.

What stands out about Wirt County?

Wirt County has more land than 277 of the other 3,221 county equivalents in the dataset.

A median is the middle county-equivalent measurement, not the average of the largest and smallest. All three bars use the same linear scale. Very small areas may appear as a thin sliver; the labels retain their values.

Does including water change its rank?

Using land plus water places Wirt County at #2,973 nationally by total area, 28 places farther from the top than its land rank. Other county equivalents gain more area when their water measurements are included.

Its water share is 1%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.2 percentage points lower. This describes the statistical geography’s land/water mix, not flood exposure or developable land.

Closest positions in the national land ranking

These entries sit immediately beside Wirt County in the national ranking. They can be in different states and are not necessarily geographic neighbors.

Calculated from the same Census release as the area table. Total-area order uses original ALAND + AWATER; water shares and chart labels use published square miles. Calculation details.