West Virginia is the 41st-largest state in the United States. On June 20, 1863, West Virginia split from Virginia and became a state of the Union. West Virginia is the 37th-most populous state in the nation. In 2010 the population of West Virginia was 1,852,994. The change in population in West Virginia throughout the 2000–10 decade was 2.5 percent. The population density per square mile is 77.1.

The ethnic/racial composition of West Virginia is largely white (93.9 percent). The remainder of the state's population is black (3.4 percent), American Indian/Alaska Native (0.2 percent), Asian (0.7 percent), and Hispanic/Latino (1.2 percent).