THE CARLISLE COUNTY LAND BRIEF
Land in the
Loess Plains setting.
Carlisle County has 189.5 square miles of land in Kentucky. 3 mapped landscape regions meet across Carlisle County: Loess Plains, Northern Holocene Meander Belts, Bluff Hills.
Windblown loess blankets irregular plains and rolling hills, with steeper bluffs near the Mississippi River. Flatter eastern areas contrast with the more deeply cut bluff country.
Regional context: Mississippi Valley Loess Plains ↗ · Regional mapping across the county footprint
Where the landscape changes
Carlisle County intersects 3 mapped regional units. The largest mapped shares are:
- Loess Plains80.4%
- Northern Holocene Meander Belts13.7%
- Bluff Hills5.9%
Mississippi Alluvial Plain in Carlisle County
The Mississippi's broad alluvial plain includes river terraces, swales and natural levees. Small changes in elevation distinguish local settings within this generally flat river landscape.
Read the regional source ↗Finding your parcel within Carlisle County
The atlas lists 3 cities, towns, townships, and Census communities associated with Carlisle County, including Cunningham, Bardwell, Arlington. The list includes overlapping geography types and does not divide the county into exclusive service areas.
Carlisle County by land and water
The Census records 9.52 square miles of water within Carlisle County, or 4.8% of its total area. That share is close to Carlisle County’s 4.8%. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, Carlisle County has 219.3 times the land area of nearby Bardwell city (0.86 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.
The Census boundary meets Ballard County, Graves County, Hickman County, McCracken County within Kentucky. A tract near one of these lines should be matched to the county identifier on its own records.

