 wirt county is a county located in the state of west virginia. as of the 2010 census, the population was 5,717, making it the least populous county in west virginia. its county seat is elizabeth. the county was created in 1848http://www.wvculture.org/history/wvcounties.html by the virginia general assembly and named for u.s. attorney general and presidential candidate william wirt. the county is serviced by one high school, wirt county high school. wirt county is included in the parkersburg-vienna, wv metropolitan statistical area, which is included in the parkersburg-marietta-vienna, wv-oh combined statistical area. ==history== wirt county was created from parts of jackson and wood counties on january 19, 1848. the county was named for william wirt (1772-1834). the first european pioneer was william beauchamp (1743-1808), a veteran of the continental navy and a methodist minister. beauchamp arrived in 1796 with a claim to 1400 acres on the little kanawha river. he farmed, built a mill, and laid out the town of elizabeth, named after his daughter. burning springs was the site of an oil rush in the 1860s. in 1863 the town was burned, along with 100,000 gallons of oil, by confederate cavalrymen. ==geography== according to the u.s. census bureau, the county has a total area of , of which  is land and  (1.0%) is water.{{cite web|url=http://www.census.gov/geo/www/gazetteer/gazette.html|publisher=united states census bureau|access
1848_establishments_in_the_United_States Counties_of_Appalachia ParkersburgaMariettaaVienna_metropolitan_area West_Virginia_counties