So, you're thinking about attending a college or university in Kentucky?

The state of Kentucky, located in the East Central United States, was originally a part of Virginia, until it joined the union as the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1792. Its bordered by Kentucky and Virginia to the north, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, and Arkansas and Missouri to the west.

Kentucky is the only state in the U.S. to have a non-contiguous part exist as an exclave surrounded by other states. This section of land exists in the far western area of Kentucky and is on the Mississippi River.

The landscape of Kentucky is made up of flat plains as well as many hill-covered regions. Even though it only covers an area of 40,444 square miles, it's divided into 120 counties, placing it third in the nation for the number of counties contained within a state.

The monthly average temperatures for the state of Kentucky span the range from a high of 87.6°F to a low of 23.1°F. The annual precipitation of the state is usually around 46 inches. It isn't unusual for the temperature and weather conditions in this region to vary wildly within the same day. This has brought rise to the saying by many locals that, "If you don't like the weather, just wait a few hours and it will change."

As of 2005, the estimated population of Kentucky was 4,173,405. This was a 0.8% increase from the previous year and a 3.2% increase since the year 2000. According to records from 2004, this includes about 95,000 foreign-born individuals, or 2.3% of the total population. The city of Willisburg, located in Washington County, is the center of population in the state of Kentucky.

In politics, Kentucky has generally leaned slightly toward the Democratic Party. As of 2006, 57.05% of voters were registered as Democrats, while 36% were Republican and 6.39% were aligned with another political party.

In five of the past seven presidential elections, voters in Kentucky have voted for the Republican candidate. The only Democrats that have one the state were candidates from the southern states, which includes Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. Republican George W. Bush won the state in both the 2000 and 2004 elections. In fact, in the 2004 election, he won by a margin of 20 percentage points, with 59.6% of the vote.

The Association of Religion Data Archives reported, in 2000, that, of Kentucky's then population of 4,041,769, 33.68% belonged to evangelical Protestant churches, 10.05% were Roman Catholics, and 8.77% were members of mainline Protestant churches. A substantial number, 46.57% said that they were not affiliated with any church.

Even though, in terms of land area, Kentucky is the 14th smallest state, it ranks 5th in the total number of farms. The state has more farms per square mile than any other state in the U.S. A large section of eastern and south central Kentucky if referred to as the "Zone of Distress" because of the face that income levels here are less than half the national average. In fact, this area has the lowest income levels and quality of life in America.

The income tax in Kentucky is separated into five tax brackets. These range from 2-6%. Presently, the sales tax in Kentucky is 6%.

There are various universities and colleges in Kentucky to decide between if you are looking for a school to attend in this area. A few of your options are:

• Kentucky State University

• Georgetown College

• The University of Kentucky

To find more information about universities and colleges in this area, visit the Online College Degrees page on this website.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Kentucky".

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