Louisville metropolitan area

The Louisville-Jefferson County, KY-IN Metropolitan Statistical Area, commonly called the Louisville metropolitan area or Kentuckiana, is the 44th largestMetropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) in the United States. The primary city is Louisville, Kentucky.

It was originally formed by the United States Census Bureau in 1950 and consisted of the Kentucky county of Jefferson and the Indiana counties of Clark and Floyd. As surrounding counties saw an increase in their population densities and the number of their residents employed within Jefferson County, they met Census criteria to be added to the MSA. Jefferson County, Kentucky (contiguous with Louisville Metro), plus twelve outlying counties — seven in Kentucky and five in Southern Indiana — are now a part of this MSA. One other Kentucky county was part of the MSA in the 2000 and 2010 U.S. Censuses, but was spun off by the Census Bureau into its own Micropolitan Statistical Area in 2013.

People living in any of the MSA are said to be living in the Louisville/Jefferson County Area. Because it includes counties in Indiana, the MSA (or a large portion thereof) is regularly referred to as Kentuckiana. It is now the primary MSA of the Louisville–Elizabethtown–Madison, KY–IN Combined Statistical Area (or Louisville CSA, which adds Hardin County, Kentucky, LaRue County, Kentucky, Jefferson County, Indiana, and Nelson County, Kentucky). The combined statistical area created by the United States Bureau of the Census in 2000 and most recently redefined in 2013 comprises the Louisville – Jefferson County, KY–IN Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), the Elizabethtown-Fort Knox, KY Metropolitan Statistical Area, the Bardstown, KY Micropolitan Statistical Area and the Madison, Indiana Micropolitan Statistical Area (also abbreviated as MSA).