The orbital symmetry of the band structure of 2H-WSe2(0 0 0 1) has been investigated by means of angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy (ARPES) and density functional theory (DFT). The WSe2(0 0 0 1) experimental band structure is found, by ARPES, to be significantly different for states of even and odd reflection parities along both the [Formula: see text]-[Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]-[Formula: see text] lines, in good agreement with results obtained from DFT. The light polarization dependence of the photoemission intensities from the top of the valence band for bulk WSe2(0 0 0 1) is explained by the dominance of W 5[Formula: see text] states around the [Formula: see text]-point and W 5d xy states around the [Formula: see text]-point, thus dominated, respectively, by states of even and odd symmetry, with respect to the [Formula: see text]-[Formula: see text] line. The splitting of the topmost valence band at [Formula: see text], due to spin-orbit coupling, is measured to be 0.49 ± 0.01 eV, in agreement with the 0.48 eV value from DFT, and prior measurements for the bulk single crystal WSe2(0 0 0 1), albeit slightly smaller than the 0.513 ± 0.01 eV observed for monolayer WSe2.