Portal:West Virginia

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The West Virginia Portal

Panorama northwest, northeast and east from a ridge along West Virginia Route 42 between Elk Garden and Sulphur City in Mineral County, West Virginia (2016)

West Virginia is a landlocked state in the Southern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. It is bordered by Pennsylvania to the north and east, Maryland to the east and northeast, Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, and Ohio to the northwest. West Virginia is the 10th-smallest state by area and ranks as the 12th-least populous state, with a population of 1,793,716 residents. The capital and most populous city is Charleston with a population of 49,055.

West Virginia was admitted to the Union on June 20, 1863, and was a key border state during the American Civil War. It was the only state to form by separating from a Confederate state, one of two states (along with Nevada) admitted to the Union during the Civil War, and the second state to separate from another state, after Maine separated from Massachusetts in 1820. Some of its residents held slaves, but most were yeoman farmers, and the delegates provided for the gradual abolition of slavery in the new state constitution. The state legislature abolished slavery in the state, and at the same time ratified the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery nationally on February 3, 1865.

West Virginia's northern panhandle extends adjacent to Pennsylvania and Ohio to form a tristate area, with Wheeling, Weirton, and Morgantown just across the border from the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. Huntington in the southwest is close to Ohio and Kentucky, while Martinsburg and Harpers Ferry in the eastern panhandle region are considered part of the Washington metropolitan area, between Maryland and Virginia. West Virginia is often included in several U.S. geographical regions, including the Mid-Atlantic, the Upland South, and the Southeastern United States. It is the only state entirely within the area served by the Appalachian Regional Commission; the area is commonly defined as "Appalachia". (Full article...)

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George Armitage Miller (February 3, 1920 – July 22, 2012) was an American psychologist who was one of the founders of cognitive psychology, and more broadly, of cognitive science. He also contributed to the birth of psycholinguistics. Miller wrote several books and directed the development of WordNet, an online word-linkage database usable by computer programs. He authored the paper, "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two," in which he observed that many different experimental findings considered together reveal the presence of an average limit of seven for human short-term memory capacity. This paper is frequently cited by psychologists and in the wider culture. Miller won numerous awards, including the National Medal of Science.

Miller began his career when the reigning theory in psychology was behaviorism, which eschewed the study of mental processes and focused on observable behavior. Rejecting this approach, Miller devised experimental techniques and mathematical methods to analyze mental processes, focusing particularly on speech and language. Working mostly at Harvard University, MIT and Princeton University, he went on to become one of the founders of psycholinguistics and was one of the key figures in founding the broader new field of cognitive science, c. 1978. He collaborated and co-authored work with other figures in cognitive science and psycholinguistics, such as Noam Chomsky. For moving psychology into the realm of mental processes and for aligning that move with information theory, computation theory, and linguistics, Miller is considered one of the great twentieth-century psychologists. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Miller as the 20th most cited psychologist of that era. (Full article...)

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Official portrait, 1958

Jennings Randolph (March 8, 1902 – May 8, 1998) was an American politician from West Virginia. A Democrat, he was most notable for his service in the United States House of Representatives from 1933 to 1947 and the United States Senate from 1958 to 1985. He was the last living member of the United States Congress to have served during the first 100 days of Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration. Randolph retired in 1985, and was succeeded by Jay Rockefeller. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various West Virginia-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Historical coat of arms of West Virginia (illustrated, 1876) (from West Virginia)
Image 2A slave woman tending to a white baby in West Virginia, 1865 (from West Virginia)
Image 3Turnout by county in the October 24, 1861, West Virginia statehood vote (from History of West Virginia)
Image 4Votes by county in the October 1861 statehood vote (from West Virginia)
Image 5Francis H. Pierpont, a leader during the Second Wheeling Convention (from West Virginia)
Image 6Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, changed hands a dozen times during the American Civil War. (from History of West Virginia)
Image 7Bluefield, a major center for coal mining, in 2014 (from West Virginia)
Image 8Counties (in blue) approving Virginia's secession from the U.S. (from History of West Virginia)
Image 9Escaped slave broadside, Hampshire County, West Virginia, 1845 (from West Virginia)
Image 10State of Westylvania proposed to the U.S. Congress (from West Virginia)
Image 11Map of Virginia dated June 13, 1861, featuring the percentage of slave population within each county at the 1860 census and the proposed state of Kanawha (from West Virginia)
Image 121751 Fry-Jefferson map showing early ferries and established colonial borders before the French And Indian War (from History of West Virginia)
Image 13The Linsly Institute building in Wheeling, West Virginia, which served as the state's first capitol building from statehood in 1863 until March 28, 1870, when the capitol was transferred to Charleston, West Virginia (from History of West Virginia)
Image 14The iconic New River Gorge Bridge near Fayetteville (from West Virginia)
Image 15A view of the New River in West Virginia, the world's third-oldest river geologically (from History of West Virginia)
Image 16Harpers Ferry alternated between Confederate and Union rule eight times during the American Civil War, and was finally annexed by West Virginia. (from West Virginia)
Image 17Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight, a statue on the grounds of the West Virginia State Capitol (from West Virginia)
Image 18Shaded relief map of the Cumberland Plateau and Ridge-and-valley Appalachians (from West Virginia)
Image 19Saturday afternoon street scene, Welch, McDowell County, 1946 (from West Virginia)
Image 20Köppen climate types of West Virginia, using 1991-2020 climate normals (from West Virginia)
Image 21The Veterans Memorial Bridge carries US 22 from Weirton WV into Ohio. (from West Virginia)
Image 22Map of West Virginia counties (from West Virginia)
Image 23John S. Carlile, a leader during the First Wheeling Convention (from History of West Virginia)
Image 24Child labor in the coal mines of West Virginia, 1908 (from West Virginia)

Racial plurality in West Virginia by county, per the 2020 U.S. census

Legend

Non-Hispanic White

70–80%

80–90%

90%+

(from West Virginia)

Image 26West Virginia population density map (from West Virginia)
Image 27Seneca Rocks, Pendleton County (from West Virginia)
Image 28A toll plaza on the West Virginia Turnpike (from West Virginia)
Image 29Thomas Lee, the first manager of the Ohio Company of Virginia (from West Virginia)
Image 30Thomas Lee, the first manager of the Ohio Company of Virginia (from History of West Virginia)
Image 31The summit of Spruce Knob is often covered in clouds. (from West Virginia)
Image 32West Virginia Independence Hall, site of the Wheeling Convention (from History of West Virginia)
Image 33From left, Senator Joe Manchin, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Senator Shelley Moore Capito, and Representative David McKinley (2017) (from West Virginia)
Image 34Packed circles diagram showing estimates of the ethnic origins of people in West Virginia in 2021. (from West Virginia)
Image 35Bituminous coal seam in southwestern West Virginia (from West Virginia)
Image 361715 Nicolas de Fer map showing the Native American areas known as Tionontatacaga and Calicuas (from History of West Virginia)

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... that the general manager of a West Virginia TV station called changing its network affiliation "the hardest decision I've ever had to make"?
... that James Dillon Armstrong was a Virginia state senator, a delegate to West Virginia's constitutional convention, and a circuit court judge while serving for more than 43 years as a Presbyterian church elder?
... that Flat Top Mountain's agriculture is mainly devoted to livestock and Christmas tree farming?
... that part of West Virginia's Princeton–Deepwater District railway was so steep that only shortened coal trains could ascend it?
... that professor Ruth Ann Davis made the largest-ever single contribution to Potomac State College of West Virginia University to support nursing scholarships in memory of her mother?
... that after nearly killing a man in a duel, Edgar P. Rucker went on to become the attorney general of West Virginia?

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