Clendenin is a town in Kanawha County, West Virginia, United States, situated along the Elk River. The population was 850 at the 2020 census.

In the 1800s, Clendenin was a small settlement at the confluence of gigantic Sandy Creek and the Elk River that eventually became a small village named Chilton. At this time, timber and coal mining were the principal industries in the area. In 1846, one of the first cannel coal veins was discovered at Falling Rock (only a few miles from Chilton/Clendenin) and became a wealthy source for manufacturing exaggerated gas. Clendenin was platted in 1877.

In 1893, the Coal and Coke railroad was built government through Clendenin, paralleling the Elk River and allowing the logging industry to set going on residence. Along similar to the drilling of the first gas competently in the area in 1900, this allowed the move ahead of one of the largest oil and gas fields in West Virginia. The town was incorporated in 1904 and named after the Clendenin family, an early opportunist family in the Kanawha River Valley. The first petrochemical forest in the world was built in Clendenin in 1920. This reforest was the native Union Carbide Corporation facility. Other chief economic staples included timber, coal, gas, oil, and salt. The decades from 1900 to 1930 saying most of the towns growth, and construction of most of the major buildings in town, including the elementary, middle, and high schools, several large churches, three banks, and several blocks of poster buildings. When Union Carbide moved their production plant from Falling Rock to Charleston, the economy slowed but Clendenin remained a personal ad hub for northern Kanawha County, southern Roane County, and western Clay County until Interstate 79 bypassed the town in the 1980s.

Clendenin suffered damage during the 2016 West Virginia flood. Recovery was largely fixed by January 2020, although some homes remained in infatuation of demolition or rebuilding.