Wheeling is a city in Ohio and Marshall counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The county seat of Ohio County, it lies along the Ohio River in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains within the state's northern panhandle. It is the fifth-most populous city in West Virginia and the most populous city in the northern panhandle with a population of 27,062 at the 2020 census. The Wheeling metropolitan area had 139,513 residents in 2020.