Picture of the Ohio River from the Farnsley Moorman landing in Louisville KY

The Ohio Valley is a sub region in

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

running long including parts of 25 counties and across five regions of the state. Over 45% of Kentucky's population live in counties that border the

Ohio River The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...

, although those counties are only 16% of the state's land area. The Ohio Valley in Kentucky can be broken up into several categories:

The Ohio Valley in Eastern and Northern Kentucky

The physical characteristics of the Ohio River valley changes very little from its beginning in downtown

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

to just northeast of

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

, including the section that flows through a small part of the

Cumberland Plateau The Cumberland Plateau is the southern part of the Appalachian Plateau in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States. It includes much of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and portions of northern Alabama and northwest Georgia. The terms "Alle ...

and the

Eden Shale Eden may refer to: *Garden of Eden, the "garden of God" described in the Book of Genesis Places and jurisdictions Canada * Eden, Ontario * Eden High School Middle East * Eden, Lebanon, a city and former bishopric * Camp Eden, Iraq Oc ...

hill region of

Northern Kentucky Northern Kentucky is the third-largest metropolitan area in the U.S. Commonwealth of Kentucky after Louisville and Lexington, and its cities and towns serve as the de facto "south side" communities of Cincinnati, Ohio. The three main counties ...

. Throughout that entire stretch the river is contained in a very narrow valley bounded by hills that are from 100 to tall and have an average angle of 45 degrees. The river ranges in width in this stretch from around 1/4 of a mile to over 4/10 of a mile.

The Ohio Valley in the Louisville Area

The Ohio Valley changes dramatically around Louisville, as for the first time heading downstream there are no bluffs overlooking the river. The river itself gets much wider and shallower, from 4/10 of a mile wide to over 9/10 a mile wide at the canal entrance, then narrows to less than 3/10 of a mile downstream of the falls as it approaches the

Falls of the Ohio The Falls of the Ohio National Wildlife Conservation Area is a national, bi-state area on the Ohio River near Louisville, Kentucky in the United States, administered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Federal status was awarded in 1981. The fal ...

, the only natural obstacle along the entire river. The falls were created by very hard

coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and sec ...

rock, which the river hasn't been able to erode. The coral contains many visible

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s. The flood plain through this stretch is very wide and flat, extending out on the Kentucky side and four miles (6 km) on the Indiana side, both east of the Muldraugh Escarpment. Also known as

Muldraugh Hill Muldraugh Hill is an escarpment in Bullitt, Hardin, Jefferson, and Nelson counties of central Kentucky separating the Bluegrass on the north and north-east from the Pennyrile on the south and south-west. This escarpment fades into the Pottsville ...

, it divides the Bluegrass and

Pennyroyal Plateau The Pennyroyal Plateau or Pennyroyal Region, often spelled Pennyrile, is a large physiographic region of Kentucky that features rolling hills, caves, and karst topography in general. It is named for a wild mint that grows in the area. It is also c ...

Regions in Kentucky, and the "karst plateau" in Indiana. The tall hill is very visible in most parts of Louisville and provides a scenic backdrop for the city.

From Muldraugh Hill to Owensboro

West Point, Kentucky West Point is a List of cities in Kentucky, home rule-class city in Hardin County, Kentucky, Hardin County, Kentucky, United States, near the edge of Fort Knox military reservation on U.S. Route 31W, Dixie Highway. It is located in a former meander ...

the river crosses the Muldraugh escarpment and is now bounded on both sides by the largest bluffs along its entire length. The bluffs here range from 400 to 500 feet and in many places are almost vertical, although the flood plain is about twice as wide as in Northern Kentucky. The river here averages around 4/10 of a mile wide.

From Owensboro to the Mississippi River

Starting near

Rockport, Indiana Rockport is a city in Ohio Township and the county seat of Spencer County, Indiana, along the Ohio River. The population was 2,270 at the 2010 census. Once the largest community in Spencer County, the city has recently been surpassed by the t ...

the bluffs above the river reduce greatly to or less as the river enters a much flatter region. The river itself becomes much more like the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

in character, widening from around 1/2 a mile wide in the West Point stretch to over 8/10 of a mile, and with many more islands and oxbow lakes. This stretch of the river has 35 islands. many of the oxbow lakes in this stretch have been made into wildlife management areas mostly for waterfowl, including the Ballard WMA which is the state's largest. {{coord, 38, 20, N, 85, 30, W, region:US-KY_scale:5000000, display=title Landforms of Kentucky River valleys of the United States Ohio River