Fayette County is located in the central part of the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 322,570, making it the second-most populous county in the

commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has been synonymous with "republic". The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the ...

. Its territory, population and government are coextensive with the city of Lexington, which also serves as the county seat. Fayette County is part of the Lexington–Fayette, KY Metropolitan Statistical Area.

History

Fayette County—originally

Fayette County, Virginia Fayette County, Virginia has existed twice in the U.S. state of Virginia's history. Formed in 1780, and 1831, respectively, both counties were named in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette, who had played a key role assisting the Continental Army durin ...

—was established by the Virginia General Assembly in June 1780, when it abolished and subdivided

Kentucky County Kentucky County (then alternately spelled Kentucke County) was formed by the Commonwealth of Virginia from the western portion (beyond the Cumberland Mountains) of Fincastle County effective December 31, 1776. The name of the county was taken ...

into three counties: Fayette,

Jefferson Jefferson may refer to: Names * Jefferson (surname) * Jefferson (given name) People * Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), third president of the United States * Jefferson (footballer, born 1970), full name Jefferson Tomaz de Souza, Brazilian foo ...

and Lincoln. Together, these counties and those set off from them later in that decade separated from Virginia in 1792 to become the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Originally, Fayette County included land which makes up 37 present-day counties and parts of 7 others. It was reduced to its present boundaries in 1799. The county is named for the Marquis de LaFayette, who came to America to support the rebelling English colonies in the American Revolutionary War. On January 1, 1974, Fayette County merged its government with that of its county seat of Lexington, creating a

consolidated city-county In United States local government, a consolidated city-county is formed when one or more cities and their surrounding county ( parish in Louisiana, borough in Alaska) merge into one unified jurisdiction. As such it has the governmental powers o ...

governed by the

Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government Lexington is a city in Kentucky, United States that is the county seat of Fayette County, Kentucky, Fayette County. By population, it is the List of cities in Kentucky, second-largest city in Kentucky and List of United States cities by popul ...

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (0.7%) is water.

Major highways

* Interstate 75 * Interstate 64 *

U.S. Route 25 U.S. Route 25 (US 25) is a north–south United States Highway that runs for in the southern and midwestern US. Its southern terminus is in Brunswick, Georgia, from where it proceeds mostly due north, passing through the cities of Augusta, Georg ...

U.S. Route 27 U.S. Route 27 (US 27) is a north–south United States Highway in the southern and midwestern United States. The southern terminus is at US 1 in Miami, Florida. The northern terminus is at Interstate 69 (I-69) in Fort Wayne, Indiana. F ...

U.S. Route 60 U.S. Route 60 is a major east–west United States highway, traveling from southwestern Arizona to the Atlantic Ocean coast in Virginia. The highway's eastern terminus is in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where it is known as Pacific Avenue, in the ...

U.S. Route 68 U.S. Route 68 (US 68) is a United States highway that runs for from northwest Ohio to Western Kentucky. The highway's western terminus is at US 62 in Reidland, Kentucky. Its present northern terminus is at Interstate 75 in Findlay, Ohio, though ...

U.S. Route 421 U.S. Route 421 (also U.S. Highway 421, US 421) is a diagonal northwest–southeast United States Numbered Highway in the states of North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, and Indiana. The highway runs for from Fort Fisher, North Caro ...

Kentucky Route 4 New Circle Road, also known as Kentucky Route 4, is a Kentucky state highway that serves as an inner beltway around Lexington, which is part of the consolidated city-county government with Fayette County. The state designates the start and fi ...

, a.k.a. New Circle Road

Adjacent counties

* Scott County (north) * Bourbon County (northeast) * Clark County (east) * Madison County (south) *

Jessamine County Jessamine County () is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 52,991. Its county seat is Nicholasville. The county was founded in December 1798. Jessamine County is part of the Lexington-Fayet ...

(south) * Woodford County (west)

Demographics

As of the census of 2010, there were 295,803 people, 123,043 households, and 69,661 families residing in the county. The population density was 1,034 people per square mile (399/km²). There were 135,160 housing units at an average density of 473 per square mile (182/km²). The racial makeup of the county was 75.7% White, 14.5% Black or African American, 0.3% Native American, 3.2%

Asian Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...

, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 3.7% from other races, and 2.5% from two or more races. 6.9% of the population were Hispanic or

Latino Latino or Latinos most often refers to: * Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America * Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States * The people or cultures of Latin America; ** Latin A ...

of any race. There were 123,043 households, out of which 25.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.1% were

married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between t ...

living together, 12.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 43.4% were non-families. 32.7% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.3 and the average family size was 2.94. In the county, the population was spread out, with 21.2% under the age of 18, 5.9% from 18 to 21, and 62.4% from 21 to 65. 10.5% were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33.7 years. 50.8% of the population was female. The median income for a household in the county was $47,469, and the median income for a family was $66,690. Males had a median income of $44,343 versus $35,716 for females. The per capita income for the county was $28,345. About 11.1% of families and 17.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 21.6% of those under age 18 and 8.6% of those age 65 or over.

Education

Public high schools

Schools in the county are operated by Fayette County Public Schools. * Henry Clay High School * Paul Laurence Dunbar High School * Frederick Douglass High School *

Bryan Station High School Bryan Station High School, founded in 1958, is a high school within the Fayette County Public Schools system in Lexington, Kentucky, United States. During the 2006–2007 school year, students were moved to their newly built school known as Brya ...

* Lafayette High School * Tates Creek High School
STEAM Academy

Private middle and elementary schools

The Lexington School
*

Sayre School Sayre School is an independent, private, co-educational school in Lexington, Kentucky, US. The school enrolls 610 students from age two through twelfth grade. It has 68 full-time faculty members. History David A. Sayre, a New Jersey silversmith, ...

* Lexington Christian Academy
Christ the King School

Mary Queen of the Holy Rosary School

Saints Peter and Paul School

Seton Catholic School

Blue Grass Baptist School

Redwood Cooperative School

Private high schools

* Lexington Catholic High School * Lexington Christian Academy *

* Trinity Christian Academy
Blue Grass Baptist School

Colleges and universities

Bluegrass Community and Technical College Bluegrass Community and Technical College (BCTC) is a public community college in Lexington, Kentucky. It is one of sixteen two-year, open admission colleges of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS). It was formed from the ...

* Indiana Wesleyan University (Lexington campus) * ITT Technical Institute *

Lexington Theological Seminary Lexington Theological Seminary is a private Christian seminary in Lexington, Kentucky. Although it is related to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), it is intentionally ecumenical with almost 50 percent of its enrollment coming from o ...

* Midway College (Lexington campus) * National College of Business & Technology *

Spencerian College Spencerian College was a private, for-profit career college in Louisville, Kentucky, Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky. It was founded in 1892 as the Spencerian Commercial School, a private for-profit business school, by Enos ...

Sullivan University Sullivan University is a private for-profit university based in Louisville, Kentucky. It is licensed to offer certificates and diplomas, associate's, bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees by the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education and ...

* Transylvania University * University of Kentucky

Politics

For much of the 20th century, Fayette County leaned more Republican than Kentucky as a whole. Between

1952 Events January–February * January 26 – Black Saturday in Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses. * February 6 ** Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, becomes m ...

and

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

, it voted for the Republican nominee all but twice, for Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and Bill Clinton in 1996, with the latter only carrying the county by a narrow plurality. Even Southern Democrat Jimmy Carter lost the county by 11 points in 1976, despite winning Kentucky by a comfortable margin. Until the mid-2000s, it did not swing as heavily to the Democrats as other urban counties. From 1992 to 2016, it was a swing county with close results between the two parties. In

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

, Barack Obama became the first Democrat to win the county since Bill Clinton in 1996, and the first to Democrat to win a majority of its votes since LBJ. In

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

, Hillary Clinton won the county by the biggest margin since LBJ, although it was one of only two counties in the entire Commonwealth to vote for her, the other being Jefferson County, home to the city of Louisville. In 2020, Joe Biden turned in the strongest showing for a Democrat in the county in over a century, bettering even Franklin D. Roosevelt. In that year, Fayette County was the most Democratic county in the Commonwealth, giving Biden a slightly larger margin than Jefferson County, marking the first time since

1948 Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The Constitution of New Jersey (later subject to amendment) goes into effect. ** The railways of Britain are nationalized, to form British ...

that Fayette County voted to the left of Jefferson County in a presidential election. This marked the first time that Fayette County was the most Democratic county in the state in Kentucky history. With nearly 60% of the vote, Biden received the highest percentage of the vote in the county of any Democratic candidate in history. Also in 2020, Donald Trump received the lowest portion of the vote for any Republican candidate in the county since William Howard Taft in

1912 Events January * January 1 – The Republic of China (1912–49), Republic of China is established. * January 5 – The Prague Conference (6th All-Russian Conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party) opens. * January 6 ...

Communities

Cities

* Lexington

Unincorporated communities

* Andover * Athens * Clays Ferry * Colby (partly in Clark County) * Little Texas * South Elkhorn * Spears (partly in

) * Todds Station

Historically black hamlets

* Bracktown * Cadentown * Jimtown * Smithtown * Little Georgetown * Pralltown

References

External links

Kentucky State Data Center

Lexington Area Metropolitan Planning Organization

Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government

Fayette County Prosecutor's Office

Fayette County Sheriff's Office
{{authority control Kentucky counties Lexington–Fayette metropolitan area 1780 establishments in Virginia Populated places established in 1780 Former counties of Virginia