Huntington is a city in Cabell and Wayne counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is the county seat of Cabell County and sits at the confluence of the Ohio and Guyandotte rivers in the southwestern part of the state. With a population of 46,842 at the 2020 census (estimated at 44,942 in 2024), Huntington is the second-most populous city in West Virginia. The Huntington–Ashland metropolitan area, spanning seven counties across West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio, has an estimated 368,000 residents.

Surrounded by extensive natural resources, the area was first settled in 1775 as Holderby's Landing. Its location was selected as ideal for the western terminus of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, which founded Huntington as one of the nation's first planned communities to facilitate transportation industries. The city quickly developed after the railroad's completion in 1871 and is eponymously named for the railroad company's founder, Collis Potter Huntington. The city became a hub for manufacturing, transportation, and industrialization, with an industrial sector based in coal, oil, chemicals and steel. After World War II, due to the shutdown of these industries, the city lost nearly 46% of its population, from a peak of 86,353 in 1950 to 54,844 in 1990.

Huntington is a vital rail-to-river transfer point for the marine transportation industry. It is home to the Port of Huntington Tri-State, the second-busiest inland port in the United States. Also, it is considered a scenic locale in the western foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The city is the home of Marshall University as well as the Huntington Museum of Art, Marshall Health Network Arena, Camden Park, one of the world's oldest amusement parks; and the headquarters of the CSX Transportation-Huntington Division.

Discounting the period of French ownership, the land that was part of Guyandotte and later Huntington was originally part of the 28,628-acre (115.85 km²) French and Indian War veteran's Savage Grant. The area of greater Huntington, although situated in a Southern state, was long considered a western city in what was then the Colony of Virginia since the first permanent settlements were founded in 1775 in defiance of British injunctions against settlements west of the Alleghenies in the vicinity of Holderby's Landing.

Historically, the old Federal Era town of Guyandotte was first built upon in 1799 by French settlers of the Ohio Valley. A farmer James Holderby (1782–1855) purchased the lands in 1821 upon which much of Huntington now stands which is why the area was known as Holderby's Landing prior to 1870 when it was incorporated and renamed; Holderby's estate included the lands gifted in 1837 to found what is now Marshall University. The town of Guyandotte was officially absorbed in 1891.

The modern City of Huntington was founded by Collis P. Huntington as the western terminus for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) on a tract of land west of the mouth of the Guyandotte River, between the Ohio River and Twelve Pole Creek. Collis P. Huntington was one of the "Big Four" of western railroading who built the Central Pacific Railroad as part of the first U.S. transcontinental railroad (along with Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker).

Collis Huntington left Delos W. Emmons in charge of his new namesake city while he was off doing business in other states. Delos's son, Arthur S. Emmons, named the Emmons Apartments after Emmons, completed in 1912. They stood in Downtown Huntington until they were destroyed by a multi-fatality fire, in 2007. Delos Emmons was married to Mary Huntington Emmons, the sister of Collis P. Huntington, and had three sons: Carlton Emmons, J. Alden "Ollie" Emmons, and Arthur S. Emmons, each of whom had pivotal roles in Huntington's growth. Emmons had a number of grandchildren including Carlton Emmons' son Delos Carleton Emmons.

Huntington was created as a hub for the C&O, which, once completed in 1873, fulfilled a long-held dream of the Virginias to have a rail link from the James River at Richmond, Virginia to the Ohio River Valley. The new railroad facilities adjacent to the Ohio River resulted in expansion of the former small town of Guyandotte into part of a large new city called Huntington. The C&O Railroad expanded east to Newport News (and coal piers), and west to eventually reach Cincinnati and Chicago in later years. After merging with several other railroads, C&O is now known as CSX Transportation.