a city and river port of the United States of North America, capital of Jefferson county, Kentucky, on the left bank of the Ohio, opposite the falls. N. Lat. 38. 3° W. Long. 85. 30°. This town, the most populous in the state, and one of the chief ports on the Ohio, is regularly laid out on a plain about 70 feet above the river. Several of the streets are two miles in length, running parallel with each other, and often ornamented with rows of trees. The chief public buildings are the town-hall, the court-house, the two colleges for law and medicine, St Paul's Episcopal church, and the blind asylum. Besides these there is an historical institute, and a mercantile library association possessing 5000 volumes. Louisville owes its present importance to the falls which occur here, and to the canal constructed to obviate this stoppage of the navigation. It is 2½ miles long, cut through limestone, and falls 22 feet by means of lockage. The depth, however, which is only 16 feet, has been found insufficient for the heavy river steamers; and consequently a ship-railway has been projected, by which the largest vessels may be brought round the falls on the Indiana side of the river. Vast quantities of provisions are brought into Louisville both by river and railway, but especially by the former. In 1855 the value of articles (including provisions and hard goods) imported into the town amounted to L7,566,945; the chief articles being pork and bacon, beef, sugar, flour, feathers, hemp, bagging, and shingles. Most of these likewise form articles of export. The steamship building has much increased here, and now constitutes an important trade. In the year ending November 1855 there were 41 steamers launched from this port. In the year ending 31st December 1855, 93 steamers, of 28,705 aggregate tonnage, were registered. The manufactures of the place have also increased in number and extent. Bagging, flour, rope, wool, cotton, and tobacco manufacturing now employ a large number of the inhabitants, and copiously supply the export trade. Louisville was laid out in 1773, but it was not established as a town till 1780, when it received its name from the Virginian legislature, in commemoration of the alliance concluded between Louis XVI. of France and the Western Republic. Pop. (1840) 21,210, (1850) 43,196, and (1855) 51,726.