Louisville Map
Louisville Information
Louisville
Louisville (varying pronunciations: US: LOO-ə-vəl, LOO-ee-vil, locally LUUV-əl) is the most populous city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sixth-most populous city in the Southeast, and the 27th-most-populous city in the United States. By land area, it is the country's 24th-largest city. Louisville is the historical county seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. Named after King Louis XVI of France, Louisville was founded in 1778 by George Rogers Clark, making it one of the oldest cities west of the Appalachians. With the nearby Falls of the Ohio as the only major obstruction to river traffic between the upper Ohio River and the Gulf of Mexico, the settlement first grew as a portage site. It was the founding city of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, which grew into a 6,000-mile (9,700 km) system across 13 states.