There’s no denying it: there are plenty of places in West Virginia that are downright beautiful and full of excitement.
Unfortunately, not all towns and cities in WV are so lucky.
Just like in all U.S. States, there are definitely some boring places within West Virginia’s borders. You know the places: the ones where everyone has an AARP card and the most exciting thing they do all day is post a picture of their grandchild on Facebook.
Like Bethlehem, for instance. In our latest analysis, we found that this city was the most boring city in all of West Virginia. But don’t feel bad if you’re a resident of Bethlehem. There are plenty of other boring, lackluster places in West Virginia as well.
Here they are. Try not to jump out of your seat with excitement:
- Bethlehem
- Bridgeport
- Summersville
- Fayetteville
- Bluefield
- Madison
- Richwood
- Follansbee
- Pleasant Valley
- New Martinsville
Before you get all upset if your city’s name is on the list, rest assured that we didn’t use personal opinion when it comes to what classifies a city or town as “boring” or “exciting”. We crunched actual numbers to figure out which towns are statistically more boring.
By the way, where are the most exciting places in West Virginia according to science? They are Morgantown, Huntington, Keyser, Fairmont and Buckhannon. That sounds about right.
How we determined the boring cities in the Mountain State
To figure out how boring a place is, we rely on a complex algorithm that factors in things we generally think make people exciting, and then we figure out which cities have the least number of those exciting people. We used the U.S. Census data to gather the information. Here are some of the things people tend to think of as making a city’s population boring:
- % of Population Over 35 (higher is more boring)
- % of Married Household (higher is more boring)
- Average Age (higher is more boring)
- % of Households With Kids (higher is more boring)
- % of Households with People Over 65 (higher is more boring)
- Population density (lower is more boring)
Then, our algorithm generates several lists of the cities that have plenty of residents with high rankings in all of these categories. After a crunching of the numbers, a list of all of the cities magically appears listing them from most boring to most exciting.
For this list, we used every West Virginia city that qualified for our rankings based on having a population of at least 2,000 residents. This keeps us from prejudicing our rankings by including very small pockets of retired people.
Grab your rocker and hold on.
1. Bethlehem
Population: 2,543
Average Age: 45.8
Married Households: 58.1%
Households With Kids: 28.3%
2. Bridgeport
Population: 8,260
Average Age: 44.1
Married Households: 57.5%
Households With Kids: 32.0%
3. Summersville
Population: 3,570
Average Age: 50.5
Married Households: 62.2%
Households With Kids: 20.6%
4. Fayetteville
Population: 2,926
Average Age: 40.6
Married Households: 48.5%
Households With Kids: 28.1%
5. Bluefield
Population: 10,492
Average Age: 45.2
Married Households: 48.9%
Households With Kids: 26.4%
6. Madison
Population: 3,065
Average Age: 46.0
Married Households: 53.1%
Households With Kids: 25.4%
7. Richwood
Population: 2,574
Average Age: 50.3
Married Households: 45.9%
Households With Kids: 24.1%
8. Follansbee
Population: 2,968
Average Age: 52.5
Married Households: 42.9%
Households With Kids: 21.9%
9. Pleasant Valley
Population: 3,167
Average Age: 47.1
Married Households: 46.3%
Households With Kids: 23.5%
10. New Martinsville
Population: 5,329
Average Age: 47.7
Married Households: 48.0%
Households With Kids: 23.1%
Now That You’re Asleep
On a list like this, there are usually no winners, but since West Virginia isn’t necessarily the most boring state in the United States (barely), the cities on this list can at least take solace that there are, in fact, more boring cities in the country.
Just not these places.
Detailed List Of Boring to Exciting Cities In West Virginia
City | Rank |
---|---|
Bethlehem | 1 |
Bridgeport | 2 |
Summersville | 3 |
Fayetteville | 4 |
Bluefield | 5 |
Madison | 6 |
Richwood | 7 |
Follansbee | 8 |
Pleasant Valley | 9 |
New Martinsville | 10 |
Oak Hill | 11 |
St. Albans | 12 |
Weirton | 13 |
Hinton | 14 |
Wellsburg | 15 |
Barboursville | 16 |
Milton | 17 |
Paden City | 18 |
Williamson | 19 |
Chester | 20 |
Ripley | 21 |
Williamstown | 22 |
Spencer | 23 |
Point Pleasant | 24 |
Winfield | 25 |
Kingwood | 26 |
St. Marys | 27 |
Mullens | 28 |
Charles Town | 29 |
Lewisburg | 30 |
Moundsville | 31 |
Shinnston | 32 |
Hurricane | 33 |
Mannington | 34 |
Vienna | 35 |
Welch | 36 |
Harrisville | 37 |
Wheeling | 38 |
White Sulphur Springs | 39 |
Belington | 40 |
South Charleston | 41 |
Grafton | 42 |
Petersburg | 43 |
Ravenswood | 44 |
Nitro | 45 |
Romney | 46 |
Moorefield | 47 |
Princeton | 48 |
Parkersburg | 49 |
Kenova | 50 |
Clarksburg | 51 |
Charleston | 52 |
#N/A | 53 |
Weston | 54 |
Beckley | 55 |
Dunbar | 56 |
Wayne | 57 |
Elkins | 58 |
Philippi | 59 |
Martinsburg | 60 |
Westover | 61 |
Buckhannon | 62 |
Fairmont | 63 |
Keyser | 64 |
Huntington | 65 |
Morgantown | 66 |