Frankfort, Kentucky

Where Frankfort is

Frankfort is the seat of Franklin County in the Bluegrass region of north-central Kentucky, at 38.20°N, 84.87°W. The city occupies a narrow valley where the Kentucky River makes a double bend between limestone bluffs, with downtown on the flat inside of the loop and the capitol across the river on the south side. The river flows on northwest to the Ohio. Lexington is about 25 miles east and Louisville about 55 miles west along Interstate 64. Frankfort is on Eastern Time; the western third of Kentucky, beyond a line roughly through Bowling Green, is on Central Time.

How it became the capital

Kentucky separated from Virginia and became the 15th state on June 1, 1792. Its first legislature met in Lexington and appointed commissioners to pick a permanent seat. Frankfort won by offering the most: land, building materials and money pledged by local landowner Andrew Holmes. The legislature met there in December 1792. Several attempts to move the capital to Louisville or Lexington in the 19th century failed, and the state built a new capitol in 1910 to settle the matter.

Population

Frankfort had 28,602 residents in 2020. Only Montpelier, Pierre and Augusta are smaller state capitals. Louisville, the largest city in Kentucky, had 633,045 in its consolidated city-county, and Lexington, the second, about 323,000. The Frankfort area is often counted within the larger Lexington region.

The capitol

The Old State Capitol downtown, designed by Gideon Shryock and finished in 1830, is a Greek Revival building with a self-supporting stone staircase and is now a museum. The present Kentucky State Capitol in South Frankfort was designed by Frank Mills Andrews and completed in 1910. It is Beaux-Arts in style, of Indiana limestone and Vermont granite, with a dome 210 ft high; the interior was modeled partly on the Paris Opera and the chapel at Les Invalides.

Distances to other cities

The Ohio River, Kentucky's northern border, is about 50 miles north of the city at its nearest point.

Related maps

• Kentucky map — the whole state with borders, cities and counties.
• Kentucky county map · blank Kentucky map · printable Kentucky map.
• All 50 state capitals on one map, and the state capitals quiz.
• South region · East South Central division · Eastern Time Zone.