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Mapping West Virginia's Loneliest Town: Cowen, 46 Miles to a City of 10,000+

By Marko Visic·Published 13 May 2026·Rank #32 of 50 states·↑ All 50 states

Cowen, WV — population 2,807, Webster County — is the most isolated inhabited place in West Virginia. The nearest city of 10,000+ residents is Oak Hill, WV, sitting 46 straight-line miles away. West Virginia has 642 towns under 10,000 residents; Cowen is the most isolated among them.

Map: Cowen, WV (West Virginia's loneliest inhabited place) and its 5 nearest cities of 10,000+ residents. The brick-red ring shows the empty zone in which no qualifying city exists; the nearest, Oak Hill, sits on its edge 46 miles away.The brick-red dot marks Cowen, the most isolated inhabited place in West Virginia. Up to 5 green dots mark the nearest qualifying cities (population 10,000+), each labelled with name and straight-line distance. The brick-red dashed circle traces the empty zone — radius equal to the distance to the very nearest qualifying city. Buckhannon, WV46 MICovington, VA47 MIElkins, WV53 MIElkview, WV54 MIOak Hill, WVCowenWEST VIRGINIA 46 MIsimplemaplab.com / studies / most-remote-places
Cowen (red dot) and the nearest 10,000+ city, Oak Hill, WV (green dot), separated by 46 straight-line miles.
46 mi
straight-line distance from Cowen to Oak Hill, WV
2,807
year-round residents of Cowen (Census 2020)
18 mi
average distance to nearest anchor across West Virginia's 642 small towns
#32
of 50 states ranked by their loneliest town's isolation
Open a radius around Cowen → /tools/map-radius-tool · Cowen, WV · 50 mi
The link opens the SimpleMapLab Map Radius Tool with a 50-mile circle drawn around Cowen. Try expanding the radius to see how far you have to look before encountering any 10,000+ city — the answer is roughly 46 miles in the direction of Oak Hill.

Why this happened

Cowen, WV is West Virginia's most remote inhabited place — but "remote" is relative here: just 46 miles from Oak Hill. West Virginia is among the more densely populated US states; the average small-town resident lives 18 miles from a qualifying anchor. Cowen's isolation is real to its 2,807 residents, even if the numbers are modest compared to Montana or Nevada.

West Virginia's 5 most isolated towns

The top 5 most-isolated inhabited places in West Virginia, sorted by distance to the nearest 10,000+ city.

#TownPop.Distance to nearest 10K+Nearest city
1Cowen2,80746 miOak Hill, WV
2Upperglade21742 miBuckhannon, WV
3Camden On Gauley89341 miOak Hill, WV
4Birch River72341 miElkview, WV
5Little Birch25740 miBuckhannon, WV

How West Virginia compares

The states ranked closest to West Virginia on this metric. Click any for the dedicated breakdown.

#31 Florida
Apalachicola · 46 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#33 Oklahoma
Boise City · 45 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#34 Virginia
Quinby · 43 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#30 Wisconsin
Park Falls · 49 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#35 Arkansas
De Witt · 41 mi to the nearest 10K+ city

Draw your own radius

Open a 50-mile circle around Cowen →

Try the 100-mile radius to see whether a major city falls inside — for Cowen, it doesn't, because the nearest qualifying city (Oak Hill, WV) sits 46 miles away.

More about West Virginia

See the full breakdown of West Virginia's counties at /states/west-virginia/counties — population, area, median income, and county seat for every county, plus a labeled printable map. The companion study 100-mile radius around West Virginia's capital measures the share of West Virginia's population that lives within day-trip distance of the capitol — an inverse framing of the isolation question this page poses.

Methodology (brief)

We aggregate the US Census ZCTA dataset by postal city, treating any (postal city, state) pair with ≥ 50 residents as a town. Anchor cities are places with ≥ 10,000 residents. For every West Virginia town below the anchor threshold, we compute the straight-line distance to every anchor city in the US (cross-state distances count). The town with the largest minimum distance is West Virginia's loneliest. Full methodology on the hub page.

Suggested citation: SimpleMapLab (2026). The Loneliest Towns in America: West Virginia. Part of the Most Remote Inhabited Places study. Retrieved from https://www.simplemaplab.com/studies/most-remote-places/west-virginia. CC-BY 4.0.