To incorporate, communities may need to meet statutory requirements made by their respective state, such as thresholds in population or specificities relative to location.
[a] Federally, the Census Bureau defines incorporated places as areas, whose boundaries do not cross state lines, that "provide governmental functions for a concentration of people", as opposed to "minor civil [divisions], which generally ... provide services or administer an area without regard, necessarily, to population".
[5] Unincorporated communities, classified as census-designated places (CDPs), lack elected municipal officers and boundaries with legal status.
[5] The Bureau identified 169 CDPs in the state of West Virginia at the 2010 census.
[8] Of the fifty-five counties in West Virginia, Logan is home to the most CDPs, with twenty-two, followed by Fayette, with eighteen, and Raleigh, with fifteen.