page_title: Kentucky
section_title: Regions
hierarchical_section_title: Kentucky / Geography / Regions
caption_attribution_description: English: Horse farm in bluegrass country, South of Paris, KY.
context_page_description: Kentucky, officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a U.S. state located in the Southern region of the country. It was admitted into the Union as the 15th state on June 1, 1792, splitting from Virginia in the process. Kentucky is the 37th most extensive and the 26th most populous of the 50 United States.
  The bluegrass region in the central part of the state contains the state's capital, Frankfort, as well as its two largest cities, Louisville and Lexington, the two of which together are home to over 20% of the state's population. Kentucky shares borders with Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia and Virginia to the east, Tennessee to the south, and Missouri to the west.
  Kentucky is known as the "Bluegrass State", a nickname based on Kentucky bluegrass, a species of grass found in many of its pastures. It is home to the world's longest cave system: Mammoth Cave National Park, as well as one of the greatest lengths of navigable waterways and streams in the contiguous United States and the two largest man-made lakes east of the Mississippi River.
context_section_description: Kentucky can be divided into five primary regions: the Cumberland Plateau in the east, the north-central Bluegrass region, the south-central and western Pennyroyal Plateau (also known as the Pennyrile or Mississippi Plateau), the Western Coal Fields and the far-west Jackson Purchase.
  The Bluegrass region is commonly divided into two regions, the Inner Bluegrass encircling 90 miles (140 km) around Lexington and the Outer Bluegrass that contains most of the northern portion of the state, above the Knobs. Much of the outer Bluegrass is in the Eden Shale Hills area, made up of short, steep, and very narrow hills.
  The Jackson Purchase and western Pennyrile are home to several bald cypress/tupelo swamps.
caption: Kentucky's Inner Bluegrass region features hundreds of horse farms.
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