Ballard County is a county located in the west portion of the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 7,728. Its county seat is Wickliffe and its largest city is LaCenter. The county was created by the Kentucky State Legislature in 1842 and is named for Captain Bland Ballard, a soldier, statesman, and member of the Kentucky General Assembly. Ballard County is part of the Paducah, KY-IL Metropolitan Statistical Area.

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 in the Southeastern United States at the confluence of the Tennessee and the Ohio rivers, halfway between St. Louis, Missouri, to the northwest and Nashville, Tennessee, to the southeast. As of the 2020 census, the population was 27,137, up from 25,024 in 2010. Twenty blocks of the city's downtown have been designated as a historic district and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.