Ripley is a city in and the county seat

County seat

A county seat is an administrative center, or seat of government, for a county or civil parish. The term is primarily used in the United States....

 of Jackson County, West Virginia

West Virginia

West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

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Ripley is located at 38°49′16"N 81°42′51"W (38.821078, -81.714264), along Mill Creek

Mill Creek (western West Virginia)

Mill Creek is a tributary of the Ohio River, long, in western West Virginia in the United States. Via the Ohio, it is part of the watershed of the Mississippi River, draining an area of on the unglaciated portion of the Allegheny Plateau...

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According to the United States Census Bureau

United States Census Bureau

The United States Census Bureau is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census. It also gathers other national demographic and economic data...

, the city has a total area of 3.1 square miles (8.0 km²), all of it land.
As of the census

Census

A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

of 2000, there were 3,263 people, 1,423 households, and 893 families residing in the city.