Kentucky: Encyclopedia II - Kentucky - Geography

Kentucky - Geography

See also: List of Kentucky counties

Kentucky, also known as The Bluegrass State, borders the Midwest and the Deep South. It touches West Virginia, Virginia, and Tennessee, but is separated by water from Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.

Its northern border is the low-water mark on the north side of the Ohio River. Its western border is the Mississippi River. Other major rivers in Kentucky include the Kentucky River, Tennessee River, the Cumberland River, the Green River, and the Licking River.

There are five main regions, the Cumberland Mountains and Cumberland Plateau in the southeast, the north-central Bluegrass Region, the south-central and western Pennyroyal Plateau, also sometimes termed "Pennyrile", the western coal-fields area, and the far-west Jackson Purchase.

The largest cities in Kentucky in terms of geographic area are the two merged city/county governments of Lexington-Fayette and Louisville Metro, although Louisville and its metropolitan area both have a much larger population than Lexington and its metro area. Northern Kentucky, an assemblage of smaller cities across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, Ohio, also has a large metropolitan population. The Lexington MSA and the Kentucky portions of the Louisville and Cincinnati MSAs, together, only make up about 45% of the state population, suggesting how rural the state is although 83% of Kentuckians live in MSAs with populations greater than 65,000. Much of rural Kentucky has become suburban during the last decade of the twentieth century.

Interestingly enough, Kentucky is the only U.S. state to have a non-contiguous part exist as an enclave of another state. Far western Kentucky includes a small part of land on the Mississippi River bordered by Missouri and accessible via Tennessee. This area is known as the Madrid Bend.

Kentucky - Regions

Bluegrass Region The Bluegrass region is commonly divided into two regions, the Inner Bluegrass - the encircling ninety miles around Lexington - and the Outer Bluegrass, the region that contains most of the Northern portion of the state, above the Knobs.

Kentucky - Significant natural attractions

• Cumberland Gap, chief passageway through the Appalachian Mountains in early American history.
• Cumberland Falls State Park, where a "moon-bow" may be seen in the mists of the falls.
• Mammoth Cave National Park, featuring tours of the world's longest cave.
• Red River Gorge Geological Area, part of the Daniel Boone National Forest.
• Land Between the Lakes, a National Recreation Area managed by the United States Forest Service.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Geography", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki