Land Lead Directory

West Virginia Land Ownership Statistics 2026

How much of West Virginia is vacant land, how many of its property owners live away from what they own, and which counties stand out — counted from West Virginia GIS Technical Center parcel records for 46 counties (2026 tax year).

Every number below is free to quote. Each one has a copy button with the sentence, the source and this page's link, and the county-level data is a one-click CSV.

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Key statistics

  1. 1,269,395

    West Virginia has 1,269,395 parcels on record across the 46 counties with published parcel rolls.

    Scope: 46 counties with published parcel rolls.

  2. 27%

    347,561 West Virginia parcels — 27% of all parcels — are vacant land with no building on them.

    Scope: 46 counties with published parcel rolls.

  3. 43%

    43% of West Virginia property owners — 500,444 ownership records — are absentee: their mailing address is not the parcel's.

    Scope: 46 counties that publish owner mailing addresses.

  4. 12%

    139,283 West Virginia property owners (12%) have a mailing address in another state.

    Scope: 46 counties that publish owner mailing addresses.

  5. 82%

    The highest absentee-owner share in West Virginia is Cabell County at 82%, followed by Brooke County (74%) and Logan County (70%).

    Scope: counties with at least 1,000 mailable owners.

  6. 28%

    The highest out-of-state owner share in West Virginia is Morgan County at 28%, followed by Pendleton County (28%) and Pocahontas County (26%).

    Scope: counties with at least 1,000 mailable owners.

  7. 30,756

    Kanawha County has the most vacant land parcels in West Virginia: 30,756, followed by Raleigh County (21,448) and McDowell County (18,288).

    Scope: 46 counties with published parcel rolls.

  8. 0.6 ac

    In the typical West Virginia county, the median vacant parcel is 0.6 acres; county medians run from 0.1 to 2.8 acres.

    Scope: 46 counties with published parcel rolls.

  9. 1,658

    1,658 West Virginia vacant-land owners are behind on their property taxes, per the 13 counties whose delinquent-tax lists we track.

    Scope: 13 counties with a current delinquent-tax list.

By county

46 counties, A to Z. Owner-location columns are blank where the county's records can't support the mailing-vs-parcel comparison.

CountyParcelsVacant parcelsVacant %Absentee %Out-of-state %Median vacant acres
Barbour County15,8374,76430%36%13%0.8
Berkeley County67,4266,81910%24%13%0.3
Boone County21,4876,42730%46%9%0.5
Braxton County16,7735,83235%42%13%2.5
Brooke County15,5783,83325%74%8%0.3
Cabell County51,1829,36818%82%8%0.3
Calhoun County9,1731,91221%28%16%1.1
Clay County10,5933,81436%32%13%2.4
Doddridge County8,4281,65020%51%20%0.3
Fayette County40,30514,63736%45%12%0.4
Gilmer County8,1651,31716%31%20%0.5
Greenbrier County32,5439,15428%48%13%0.6
Hancock County21,2916,23329%25%9%0.2
Jackson County22,2315,07323%63%7%1.6
Jefferson County34,8156,94420%26%17%0.3
Kanawha County128,99430,75624%46%6%0.2
Lewis County17,6634,78727%48%12%1.3
Lincoln County18,8055,84031%43%12%2.2
Logan County31,65811,20435%70%12%0.2
Mason County21,6194,25220%42%9%0.5
McDowell County32,87718,28856%33%22%0.1
Mercer County50,78716,49832%42%13%0.3
Mineral County20,2294,77624%33%10%1
Monongalia County65,49715,13323%38%7%0.3
Monroe County13,9492,99921%36%16%1.4
Morgan County16,0083,93125%36%28%2.8
Nicholas County28,9139,15032%43%11%0.8
Ohio County26,7746,28723%47%9%0.2
Pendleton County11,2532,67524%39%28%2.6
Pleasants County7,1722,11630%31%17%1
Pocahontas County16,8814,70028%28%26%1
Preston County35,27310,94531%28%21%0.5
Putnam County37,4808,02721%43%4%0.3
Raleigh County64,23821,44833%40%10%0.3
Randolph County25,5937,40529%39%11%1.3
Ritchie County13,5493,90629%45%19%1.6
Roane County15,0883,78125%50%12%2.4
Summers County15,3665,04633%41%15%1
Taylor County14,7643,72125%56%9%0.2
Tucker County10,9023,43532%38%24%0.6
Wayne County32,97211,26234%47%10%1
Webster County12,1285,53746%36%15%1.7
Wetzel County16,1604,52028%43%16%0.5
Wirt County7,3922,70937%35%16%1.4
Wood County59,69614,97525%35%7%0.2
Wyoming County23,8889,67541%43%16%0.3

How these numbers are counted

  • Parcels are every record on the county's published parcel roll; vacant land is the county's own vacant land-use codes (no building value).
  • Absentee means the owner's mailing address differs from the parcel's address; out-of-state means the mailing address is in another state. Both are shares of owners with a mailable address, and are omitted for counties whose parcel addresses can't support the comparison.
  • Counts are deduplicated by owner and mailing address where the source allows it. Figures change when a county publishes a new roll.
  • Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY 4.0). Cite as: Land Lead Directory, "West Virginia Land Ownership Statistics 2026", West Virginia GIS Technical Center (2026 tax year). https://landleaddirectory.com/statistics/west-virginia
  • The same county files for every state we cover are also on Kaggle, Hugging Face and GitHub.

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