Metro Valley

Metro Valley covers the urban core of West Virginia — four counties (Cabell, Kanawha, Mason, Putnam) tracking the Kanawha River from the New River confluence west to the Ohio. The terrain is the Allegheny Plateau cut by the river: ridges rising 500 to 800 feet above the bottoms, the broad Kanawha floodplain, and the Ohio River front at the western edge. Charleston, the state capital, anchors the region in Kanawha County, with the gold-domed Capitol, the Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences, and the West Virginia State Museum. Huntington holds Cabell County and Marshall University, and runs the Ohio River front with the Heritage Farm Museum & Village. Point Pleasant in Mason County sits at the Ohio-Kanawha confluence and holds the Mothman Museum and the Tu-Endie-Wei battlefield park; Hurricane and Teays Valley fill out the Putnam suburbs between Charleston and Huntington. Most travel here threads I-64 between Charleston and Huntington, picking up the capital district, the riverfronts, and the museums. Spring brings the Sternwheel Regatta in Charleston; the surrounding hills are quiet at any season, and both anchor cities work as bases for trips into the New River Gorge an hour or two southeast.