Pike County, Kentucky

Pike County is a county in Kentucky, United States, in the state’s easternmost corner along
the West Virginia and Virginia lines. It had a population of 58,669 at the 2020 census, an
estimated 54,721 by 2025, and covers 789 square miles (2,043 km2) centred near 37°28′N 82°24′W.

Pikeville is the county seat and its largest city; its postal code is 41501. The county holds
3 cities, 6 census-designated places and more than 110 smaller unincorporated communities, and it
runs on Eastern Time. Its FIPS code is 21195.

Towns & Villages in Pike County

Pike County has 121 named places on record: 3 incorporated cities, 6 census-designated places
(CDPs) that the Census Bureau counts separately, and more than 110 unincorporated communities and
former coal camps with no population of their own. CDP stands for census designated place;
Unincorp. covers the coal-camp settlements and crossroads with no formal boundary or count.

The other 112 named places in Pike County are unincorporated communities and old coal camps
with no separate Census Bureau population count: Aflex, Argo, Ashcamp, Beaver Bottom, Belcher,
Big Branch, Biggs, Blackburn Bottom, Blair Town, Board Tree, Boldman, Broad Bottom, Burnwell,
Buskirk, Canada, Cedarville, Coleman, Collins, Dorton, Douglas, Draffin, Dry Fork, Dunlap,
Dunleary, Edgewater, Elimer, Ellwood, Esco, Etty, Federal, Fedscreek, Fords Branch, Forest
Hills, Garden Village, Goody, Greasy Creek, Gulnare, Hardy, Hartley, Hatfield, Heenon, Hellier,
Henry Clay, Honey Fork, Huddy, Hylton, Jamboree, Jonancy, Justiceville, Kewanee, Kimper,
Leckieville, Levisa Junction, Lick Creek, Lionilli, Little Dixie, Lookout, Majestic, Marrowbone,
Mayo Village, McAndrews, McCombs, McVeigh, Meta, Millard, Mossy Bottom, Mouthcard, Myra, Nelse,
New Camp, Nigh, Owsley, Pauley, Paw Paw, Penny, Pigeon, Pinsonfork, Piso, Pleasant Valley,
Raccoon, Ransom, Ratliff, Republic, Road Junction, Robinson Creek, Rockhouse, Rural, Sharondale,
Shelbiana, Sidney, Simers, Speight, Stanley Addition, Stone, Stopover, Stringtown, Sutton, Titan
Siding, Toler, Toonerville, Turkey Creek, Varney, Venters, Wales, Wolfpit, Woodman, Woodside,
Yeager, Yorktown and Zebulon. Most began as company coal camps built around a single mine in the
early 1900s and lost their post offices when the mines closed; they have no ZIP or population
count distinct from the county as a whole.

ZIP Codes

• 41501 — Pikeville and Coal Run Village (shared)
• 41502 — Pikeville (a post office box ZIP)
• 41522 — Elkhorn City
• 41553 — Phelps
• 41503 — South Williamson (also serves 41514 and 41527 nearby)
• 41528 — Freeburn
• 41572 — Virgie
• 41514 — Belfry
• 41544 — McCarr

More than 110 smaller communities, mostly former coal camps, have no ZIP of their own; mail
there is delivered under the nearest incorporated town’s or CDP’s code, a pattern common
across central Appalachia’s abandoned company towns.

Geography

Pike County sits in Kentucky’s Cumberland Plateau, at the state’s eastern tip where
the Appalachian coalfield meets West Virginia and Virginia. Of its 789 square miles, 787
are land and 1.8 are water, about 0.2 percent — the county has no large natural lake, and
its water comes from the Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River and its tributaries, plus the Russell
Fork and Tug Fork. It is Kentucky’s largest county by land area. Pine Mountain runs along
the county’s southeastern edge near Elkhorn City, where the Russell Fork carves the gorge
that forms Breaks Interstate Park, a canyon shared with Virginia and marketed as the “Grand
Canyon of the South.” The Tug Fork forms part of the county’s northeastern line with
West Virginia.

Martin County lies to the north, Floyd County to the west, Knott and Letcher counties to the
southwest, Wise and Dickenson counties in Virginia to the south, Buchanan County, Virginia to the
southeast, and Mingo and McDowell counties in West Virginia to the east. Martin County, Floyd County, Knott County, Letcher County, Wise County, Dickenson County, Buchanan County and McDowell County all
border Pike directly; Mingo County, West Virginia has no page on this site yet.

Demographics

Pike County had a population of 58,669 at the 2020 census, and the latest estimate puts the
county near 54,721 residents, a decline tied to the region’s shrinking coal workforce.
Pikeville and Coal Run Village, its two largest incorporated places, sit next to each other along
the Levisa Fork and together hold more than 9,000 residents. Median household income runs
$44,312, well below Kentucky’s statewide figure of $61,118. Population density works out to
about 74 people per square mile of land, low even by rural Kentucky standards, reflecting a
county where most residents live scattered along narrow creek hollows rather than in towns.

Economy & Local Life

Health care and social assistance employs the most workers in the county, about 3,771 people,
followed by retail trade at 2,788 and educational services at 2,418. Pikeville Medical Center, a
regional referral hospital, and the University of Pikeville, a private university with a college
of osteopathic medicine, are the county’s two largest employers and anchor its shift away
from coal. Coal and natural gas extraction still support part of the local economy — Pike
County was Kentucky’s second-largest coal producer as recently as 2013 — alongside
Big Sandy Community and Technical College and a growing tourism trade built around Breaks
Interstate Park’s whitewater rafting on the Russell Fork. The county’s biggest annual
event is Hillbilly Days in Pikeville each mid-April, a downtown festival billed as
Kentucky’s second-largest.

History

Kentucky’s legislature formed Pike County on 19 December 1821, carving it out of Floyd
County. It was named for explorer Zebulon Pike, who never lived in the county himself. Pikeville
was laid out as the county seat soon after and incorporated in the decades that followed.

Pike County was the setting for much of the Hatfield–McCoy feud, a series of killings
between the Hatfield family of West Virginia and the McCoy family of Kentucky that ran from the
1860s through 1891, centred on the Tug Fork and Blackberry Creek. In the twentieth century,
downtown Pikeville sat in a tight bend of the Levisa Fork that flooded repeatedly and left little
room to grow; between 1973 and 1987 the county and federal government rerouted the river, a
CSX rail line and US 23 through a cut blasted straight through a mountain, the Pikeville
Cut-Through, described locally as the second-largest earthmoving project in the Western
Hemisphere after the Panama Canal.

Getting There

No interstate highway crosses Pike County. US 23 runs the length of the county through the
Pikeville Cut-Through, and US 119, US 460 and US 121 connect Pikeville to the surrounding
coalfield towns.

• Williamson, WV — about 20 miles northeast
• Prestonsburg — about 30 miles west
• Whitesburg — about 35 miles southwest
• Grundy, VA — about 30 miles southeast

Pike County Airport, on Pikeville’s south side, handles general aviation only. The
nearest airport with scheduled airline service is Tri-State Airport in Huntington, West Virginia,
about 70 miles north. No Amtrak line reaches this part of Kentucky; the nearest station is
Hinton, West Virginia, on the Cardinal route, about 90 miles northeast.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Pike County located?
It sits in Kentucky’s easternmost corner, on the West Virginia and Virginia lines, bordered
by Martin, Floyd, Knott, Letcher, Wise, Dickenson, Buchanan, Mingo and McDowell counties.

What is the population of Pike County?
58,669 at the 2020 census, with an estimate near 54,721 residents more recently.

How big is Pike County?
789 square miles (2,043 km2) in total, of which 787 square miles are land — the largest
land area of any Kentucky county.

What is the county seat of Pike County?
Pikeville, the largest city, founded soon after the county’s 1821 formation.

How many towns and cities are in Pike County?
Three incorporated cities — Pikeville, Coal Run Village and Elkhorn City — plus six
census-designated places (Phelps, South Williamson, Freeburn, Virgie, Belfry and McCarr) and more
than 110 smaller unincorporated communities.

What ZIP codes does Pike County use?
41501 and 41502 for Pikeville and Coal Run Village, 41522 for Elkhorn City, and separate codes for
each of the county’s six CDPs, listed above.

What is Pike County known for?
The Hatfield–McCoy feud of the 1860s–1891, the Pikeville Cut-Through engineering
project, and decades as one of Kentucky’s leading coal counties.

More counties in this state: Towns and villages in Kentucky.