County Kilkenny
This image shows a map of Ireland with the four provinces marked out in different colours and highlighting County Kilkenny in dark blue. Do you know which province is which?
County Kilkenny
County Kilkenny
This image shows a map of Ireland with the four provinces marked out in different colours and highlighting County Kilkenny in dark blue. Do you know which province is which?
What to do
In this section we're going to look at the geography of County Kilkenny. It is an inland county in the southeast of Ireland. It is 796 square miles in size.
County Kilkenny has access to the sea at New Ross and at Belview Port.
Kilkenny's most notable features are its uplands to the north and southwest and the unique architecture of its towns and villages.
Land in Kilkenny is generally very fertile. The main land use is grassland and dairy farming. Tillage farming is also very important, especially around Kilkenny City and in the fertile central plain of the Nore Valley. Conifer forests are found on the upland areas.
Kilkenny is one of 12 counties that make up the province of Leinster. It shares a border with 5 other counties. They are Waterford to the south, Tipperary to the west, Laois to the north, Carlow to the east and Wexford to the southeast.
Kilkenny gets its name from from the irish ' Cill Chainnigh', the church of Cainneach, which was founded by St Canice in the 6th century.
Population
According to the census of 2006, the population of County Kilkenny is 87,558. This represents an increase of 7,159 from the population figure for 2002 (80,399). This figure is roughly a 9% increase, which is slightly higher than the national average of 8.1%.
67%(4,822) of this increase was due to net migration while the rest is down to a natural increase (number of births - number of deaths).
Kilkenny's population of 87,558 is divided by 44,263 males and 43,295 females. It is roughly 4% of the whole population for the province of Leinster.