Geography of Kentucky

For instance, northbound travelers on U.S. 41 from Henderson, after crossing the Ohio River, will be in Kentucky for about two miles (3.2 km).

Ellis Park, a thoroughbred racetrack, is located in this small piece of Kentucky.

It exists as an exclave surrounded completely by Missouri and Tennessee, and is included in the boundaries of Fulton County.

Road access to this small part of Kentucky on the Mississippi River (populated by 18 people as of 2010[update])[3] requires a trip through Tennessee.

The epicenter of the 1811–12 New Madrid earthquakes was near this area, causing the Mississippi River to flow backwards in some places.

[4] Kentucky can be divided into five primary regions: the Cumberland Plateau in the east, which contains much of the historic coal mines; the north-central Bluegrass region, where the major cities and the state capital (Frankfort) are located; 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.

[6] Kentucky has four distinct seasons, with substantial variations in the severity of summer and winter.

Somerset in the south-central part receives ten more inches of rain per year than, for instance, Covington to the north.

Average temperatures for the entire Commonwealth range from the low 30s in January to the high 70s in mid-July.

Kentucky has been part of two of the most successful wildlife reintroduction projects in United States history.

In the winter of 1997, the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources began to re-stock elk in the state's eastern counties, which had been extinct from the area for over 150 years.