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Owsley County

county in Kentucky, United States

Key facts

Country: United States
State: Kentucky
Named after: William Owsley
Seat: Booneville
Largest city: Booneville
Judge executive: Zeke Little Jr. (R)
Total: 198 sq mi (510 km )
Land: 197 sq mi (510 km )
Water: 0.9 sq mi (2.3 km ) 0.4%
Estimate 2025: 3,932
Density: 20.6/sq mi (7.94/km )
Time zone: UTC−5 ( Eastern )
Summer dst: UTC−4 ( EDT )
Congressional district: 5th

via Wikipedia infobox

Article

Owsley County is a county located in the Eastern Coalfield region of the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 4,051, making it the second-least populous county in Kentucky. The county seat is Booneville. The county was organized on January 23, 1843, from Clay, Estill, and Breathitt counties and named for William Owsley (1782–1862), the judge of the Kentucky Court of Appeals and Governor of Kentucky (1844–48). According to the 2010 census reports, Owsley County has the second-highest level of child poverty of any county in the United States. In terms of income per household, the county is the poorest in the nation. Between 1980 and 2014, the rate of death from cancer in the county increased by 45.6 percent, the largest such increase of any county in the United States.

History