Most African American cities in Kentucky research summary. We used Saturday Night Science to analyze Kentucky’s most recent Census data to determine the cities with the largest Black population, based on the percentage of Black residents.
The city with the largest African American population in Kentucky is Shively (58.2% Black); the least is Union (0.0%). Statewide, Kentucky is 7.6% Black — the 24th blackest state in the country.
Roughly 42 million people identifying as Black or African American live in the United States, about 12% of the total population. In Kentucky, the Black population is 342,570, at 7.6% of the state total.
We broke down the most recent Census data to determine the cities in Kentucky with the largest African American population in 2026.
#1 most African American in Kentucky
Located in
Jefferson County, Kentucky
Shively is a home rule-class city in Jefferson County, Kentucky, United States and a suburb of Louisville within the Louisville Metro government. As of the 2010 Census, the city’s population was 15,264, reflecting an increase of 107 from 15,157 in 2000.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
#2 most African American in Kentucky
Located in
Christian County, Kentucky
Hopkinsville is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of Christian County, Kentucky, United States. The population at the 2010 census was 31,577.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
#3 most African American in Kentucky
Located in
Hardin County, Kentucky
Radcliff is a home rule-class city in Hardin County, Kentucky, in the United States. The population was 21,692 at the 2010 census, and in 2016 the estimated population was 22,490. It is included in the Elizabethtown-Fort Knox Metropolitan Area.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
#4 most African American in Kentucky
Louisville LOO–vl or LUUV-l) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 29th-most populous city in the United States. It is one of two cities in Kentucky designated as first-class, the other being the state’s second-largest city of Lexington. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County.
#5 most African American in Kentucky
Located in
Christian County, Kentucky
Oak Grove is a home rule-class city adjacent to the Fort Campbell army base in Christian County, Kentucky, in the United States. The population was 7,489 as of the 2010 U.S. Census. It is part of the Clarksville, Tennessee metropolitan area.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
#6 most African American in Kentucky
Located in
McCracken County, Kentucky
Paducah is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of McCracken County, Kentucky, United States. The largest city in the Jackson Purchase region, it is located at the confluence of the Tennessee and the Ohio Rivers, halfway between St. Louis, Missouri, to the northwest and Nashville, Tennessee, to the southeast. The population was 24,864 in 2015, down from 25,024 during the 2010 U.S. Census. Twenty blocks of the city’s downtown have been designated as a historic district and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
#7 most African American in Kentucky
Located in
Marion County, Kentucky
Lebanon is a home rule-class city in Marion County, Kentucky, in the United States. The population was 6,331 at the 2010 census. It is the seat of its county. Lebanon is located in central Kentucky, southeast of Louisville. A national cemetery is located nearby.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
#8 most African American in Kentucky
Lexington, consolidated with Fayette County and often denoted as Lexington-Fayette, is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 60th-largest city in the United States. By land area, Lexington is the 28th largest city in the United States. Known as the “Horse Capital of the World,” it is the heart of the state’s Bluegrass region. With a mayor-alderman form of government, it is one of two cities in Kentucky designated by the state as first-class; the other is the state’s largest city of Louisville. In the 2016 U.S. Census Estimate, the city’s population was 318,449, anchoring a metropolitan area of 506,751 people and a combined statistical area of 723,849 people. Due to constant increases in population, Lexington suffers some of the worst traffic congestion in Kentucky, because two interstates bypass the city to the north and east, resulting in a lack of freeways going through the most populated areas of the city.
#9 most African American in Kentucky
Located in
Franklin County, Kentucky
Frankfort is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the seat of Franklin County. It is a home rule-class city in Kentucky; the population was 25,527 at the 2010 census. Located along the Kentucky River, Frankfort is the principal city of the Frankfort, Kentucky Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Franklin and Anderson counties.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
#10 most African American in Kentucky
Located in
Warren County, Kentucky
Bowling Green is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of Warren County, Kentucky, United States. As of 2016, its population of 65,234 made it the third most-populous city in the state after Louisville and Lexington; its metropolitan area had an estimated population of 165,732; and the combined statistical area it shares with Glasgow has an estimated population of 218,870.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Kentucky’s statewide median.
On the map
Where Kentucky’s Black communities live
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How We Determined The Cities In Kentucky With The Largest Black Population For 2026
We still believe in the accuracy of data — especially from the Census. So that’s where we went to get the race breakdown across Kentucky.
That leads us to the Census’s most recently available data, the 2020-2024 American Community Survey data from the US Census.
Specifically, we looked at table B03002: Hispanic OR LATINO ORIGIN BY RACE. Here are the category names as defined by the Census:
- Hispanic or Latino
- White alone*
- Black or African American alone*
- American Indian and Alaska Native alone*
- Asian alone*
- Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone*
- Some other race alone*
- Two or more races*
Our particular column of interest was the number of people who identified as Black or African American.
We limited our analysis to non-CDPs with a population greater than 5,000 people in Kentucky. That left us with 75 cities.
We then calculated the percentage of residents that are Black or African American. The percentages ranked from 58.2% to 0.0%.
Finally, we ranked each city based on the percentage of the Black population, with a higher score being more Black than a lower score. Shively took the distinction of being the most Black, while Union was the least African American city.
We updated this article for 2026. This is our eleventh time ranking the cities in Kentucky with the largest African American population.
The full plate
African American Population By City In Kentucky
Click any column to sort. Search by city name.
| Rank | City | Population | African American Population | % African American |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shively | 15,638 | 9,107 | 58.2% |
| 2 | Hopkinsville | 30,906 | 8,079 | 26.1% |
| 3 | Radcliff | 22,864 | 5,159 | 22.6% |
| 4 | Louisville/Jefferson County metro government (balance) | 631,818 | 139,749 | 22.1% |
| 5 | Oak Grove | 7,962 | 1,617 | 20.3% |
| 6 | Paducah | 26,845 | 5,155 | 19.2% |
| 7 | Lebanon | 6,430 | 1,148 | 17.9% |
| 8 | Lexington-Fayette urban county | 323,725 | 46,573 | 14.4% |
| 9 | Frankfort | 28,503 | 4,047 | 14.2% |
| 10 | Bowling Green | 75,388 | 10,599 | 14.1% |
| 11 | Lyndon | 11,030 | 1,539 | 14.0% |
| 12 | Jeffersontown | 29,199 | 4,066 | 13.9% |
| 13 | Bardstown | 13,804 | 1,899 | 13.8% |
| 14 | Henderson | 27,852 | 3,425 | 12.3% |
| 15 | Mayfield | 9,868 | 1,213 | 12.3% |
| 16 | Princeton | 6,241 | 728 | 11.7% |
| 17 | Elizabethtown | 32,576 | 3,735 | 11.5% |
| 18 | Danville | 17,327 | 1,762 | 10.2% |
| 19 | Madisonville | 19,515 | 1,952 | 10.0% |
| 20 | Campbellsville | 11,622 | 1,127 | 9.7% |
| 21 | Russellville | 7,316 | 707 | 9.7% |
| 22 | Franklin | 10,360 | 896 | 8.6% |
| 23 | Paris | 10,160 | 878 | 8.6% |
| 24 | Covington | 41,110 | 3,439 | 8.4% |
| 25 | Glasgow | 15,197 | 1,165 | 7.7% |
| 26 | Maysville | 8,737 | 662 | 7.6% |
| 27 | Harrodsburg | 9,313 | 705 | 7.6% |
| 28 | Douglass Hills | 5,474 | 399 | 7.3% |
| 29 | Middletown | 9,763 | 698 | 7.1% |
| 30 | Murray | 18,080 | 1,245 | 6.9% |
| 31 | Hillview | 8,797 | 598 | 6.8% |
| 32 | Florence | 32,803 | 2,182 | 6.7% |
| 33 | Owensboro | 60,302 | 3,780 | 6.3% |
| 34 | Erlanger | 19,875 | 1,194 | 6.0% |
| 35 | Newport | 13,967 | 835 | 6.0% |
| 36 | Georgetown | 39,117 | 2,298 | 5.9% |
| 37 | Richmond | 37,111 | 2,166 | 5.8% |
| 38 | Middlesborough | 9,123 | 532 | 5.8% |
| 39 | Versailles | 10,492 | 604 | 5.8% |
| 40 | Shelbyville | 17,668 | 988 | 5.6% |
| 41 | Williamsburg | 5,270 | 275 | 5.2% |
| 42 | Nicholasville | 32,197 | 1,582 | 4.9% |
| 43 | Winchester | 19,213 | 911 | 4.7% |
| 44 | Lawrenceburg | 11,943 | 497 | 4.2% |
| 45 | St. Matthews | 17,577 | 725 | 4.1% |
| 46 | Fort Mitchell | 8,713 | 347 | 4.0% |
| 47 | Central City | 5,707 | 222 | 3.9% |
| 48 | Monticello | 5,753 | 212 | 3.7% |
| 49 | Pikeville | 7,490 | 263 | 3.5% |
| 50 | Somerset | 12,216 | 403 | 3.3% |
| 51 | Elsmere | 9,205 | 300 | 3.3% |
| 52 | Morehead | 6,870 | 222 | 3.2% |
| 53 | Berea | 15,786 | 478 | 3.0% |
| 54 | Highland Heights | 6,444 | 187 | 2.9% |
| 55 | Cynthiana | 6,458 | 185 | 2.9% |
| 56 | Alexandria | 10,562 | 265 | 2.5% |
| 57 | Mount Sterling | 7,551 | 188 | 2.5% |
| 58 | Fort Thomas | 17,169 | 397 | 2.3% |
| 59 | Cold Spring | 6,341 | 137 | 2.2% |
| 60 | Ashland | 21,295 | 417 | 2.0% |
| 61 | La Grange | 10,311 | 196 | 1.9% |
| 62 | Taylor Mill | 6,937 | 131 | 1.9% |
| 63 | Fort Wright | 5,887 | 99 | 1.7% |
| 64 | Dayton | 5,743 | 94 | 1.6% |
| 65 | Shepherdsville | 14,533 | 222 | 1.5% |
| 66 | Independence | 29,392 | 428 | 1.5% |
| 67 | Bellevue | 5,636 | 73 | 1.3% |
| 68 | Leitchfield | 6,819 | 72 | 1.1% |
| 69 | London | 7,561 | 79 | 1.0% |
| 70 | Villa Hills | 7,480 | 73 | 1.0% |
| 71 | Corbin | 8,246 | 76 | 0.9% |
| 72 | Edgewood | 8,447 | 35 | 0.4% |
| 73 | Flatwoods | 7,269 | 7 | 0.1% |
| 74 | Mount Washington | 18,480 | 2 | 0.0% |
| 75 | Union | 7,642 | 0 | 0.0% |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024. 75 cities with more than 5,000 residents.
Summary
Summary: Black Populations Across Kentucky
If you’re looking for a breakdown of African American populations across Kentucky according to the most recent data, this is an accurate list.
The blackest cities in Kentucky are Shively, Hopkinsville, Radcliff, Louisville/Jefferson County metro government (balance), Oak Grove, Paducah, Lebanon, Lexington-Fayette urban county, Frankfort, and Bowling Green.
