Lewis County is near the northeastern tip of the U.S. state of Kentucky.

Its heavily forested hills and hollows have produced some of the nation's best oak lumber.

Lumbering was long the county's principal economic activity; today the largest categories of employment are health care and social assistance (814 persons), construction (680) and manufacturing (600).

[8] As of the census of 2000, there were 14,092 people, 5,422 households, and 4,050 families residing in the county.

22.50% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.00% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.

The last Democrat to win the county in a presidential election was Samuel J. Tilden in 1876.

[17] In a state that allowed slavery but did not secede from the Union, the Lewis County Courthouse has the only non-cemetery Union monument south of the Mason-Dixon Line that was erected by public subscription.