Ranked 108th of 387 metropolitan areas in the United States, Lexington, KY counts 522,560 residents. Census figures on income, housing, education and the local business mix, and what they imply for a business advertising here.
Officially the Lexington-Fayette, KY metropolitan statistical area, it takes in Lexington and Fayette.
Income in Lexington, KY: a median of $71,966 per household against $80,734 nationally, so 11 percent below the national figure. Homes are valued at a median of $281,300 against $332,700 nationally, 15 percent below the national figure.
Work: 279,539 in the labor force, 4.5% unemployed (about the same as the US share). 59.3% of occupied homes are owner-occupied, 6 points below the US share. Residents skew younger than the national median: 36.7 years, 2.2 years below the national median. 42% of adults over 25 hold a bachelor's degree or higher, 6 points above the US share.
Relative to Kentucky, household income in Lexington, KY is 13 percent higher than the Kentucky figure, home values are 37 percent higher than the Kentucky figure, and businesses per 1,000 residents are 24 percent denser than the Kentucky figure.
Start with the count: 13,490 establishments with payroll. Set against the population that is 25.8 per 1,000 residents, 3 percent above the national figure, against 25 nationally. The single largest category in the table below is restaurants, with 969 locations. 612 of them are home-services contractors, 4.5% of everything, about the same as the US share.
| Business type | Establishments | Per 100k residents | Share ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| General freight trucking | 126 | 24.1 | 0.67× |
| Grocery and convenience retailers | 117 | 22.4 | 0.73× |
| General automotive repair | 104 | 19.9 | 0.76× |
| Highway, street and bridge construction | 12 | 2.3 | 0.80× |
| Roofing contractors | 35 | 6.7 | 0.85× |
| Other specialty trade contractors (paving, asphalt, fencing) | 59 | 11.3 | 0.86× |
| Personal care services (all) | 227 | 43.4 | 0.88× |
| Concrete foundation and structure contractors | 34 | 6.5 | 0.90× |
| Landscaping services | 174 | 33.3 | 0.91× |
| Electrical contractors | 126 | 24.1 | 0.94× |
| Beauty salons | 127 | 24.3 | 0.94× |
| Child day care services | 127 | 24.3 | 0.96× |
| Restaurants and other eating places | 969 | 185.4 | 0.97× |
| Lessors of real estate (all) | 223 | 42.7 | 1.01× |
| Plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors | 184 | 35.2 | 1.03× |
| Dentists | 234 | 44.8 | 1.07× |
| Physicians' offices | 377 | 72.1 | 1.07× |
| Legal services | 315 | 60.3 | 1.08× |
| Automobile dealers | 88 | 16.8 | 1.16× |
| Self-storage facilities | 37 | 7.1 | 1.24× |
The last column divides the local share of establishments by the national share (1.00 = the same mix as the US).
Relative to the national mix, self-storage operators and automobile dealers take up an outsized slice of the Lexington, KY business base. At the top of that list, self-storage operators number 37, 1.2 times the US share. On the other side, general freight trucking, grocery stores, general automotive repair and road and paving contractors are thin: fewer establishments per resident than the US pattern. General freight trucking are the thinnest at 126, about 67% of the national share. In line with the country: plumbing and HVAC contractors, electrical contractors and concrete contractors.
On a per-capita basis restaurants come first at 185.4 per 100,000, ahead of physicians' offices and legal services. By raw count the largest categories here are restaurants (969), physicians' offices (377) and legal services (315). By sector, legal services are the most over-represented at about the same as the US share; trucking, storage, real estate and road construction are the least, at about the same as.
With self-storage operators and automobile dealers over-indexed, the cost of a click rises and so does the value of everything that happens after it: a page that loads fast, a number that is answered, a review profile that settles the comparison. Scarcity in general freight trucking, grocery stores and general automotive repair cuts the other way: fewer rivals per search, cheaper clicks, and a chance to become the default answer in the map results with a modest, steady effort. Income 11 percent below the national figure puts price front and center; ads that state the offer plainly and make calling easy do best. Homeownership of 59.3% is below the national share, so a larger part of the housing stock is managed by landlords and property managers; for home-services trades that argues for a commercial and property-management pitch alongside the consumer one. The population is younger than the national median (2.2 years below the national median), which raises the value of Instagram, streaming and AI-answer visibility next to search.
A short list of services chosen for this market; the full range is on the services page.
Site structure, pages and citations that earn organic placement in Lexington, KY.
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Review generation and monitoring across Google and the other places people check.
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Lexington, KY has 522,560 residents (US Census Bureau ACS 2024 5-year estimate), ranking 108th of 387 metropolitan areas.
The median household income in Lexington, KY is $71,966 (ACS 2024 5-year), below the US median of $80,734.
The Census Bureau counts 13,490 employer establishments in Lexington, KY (County Business Patterns 2023), or 25.8 businesses per 1,000 residents.
The median home value in Lexington, KY is $281,300, and 59.3% of homes are owner-occupied (ACS 2024 5-year).
Measured against the US business mix (County Business Patterns 2023), self-storage operators and automobile dealers have more establishments per resident than the US average; general freight trucking, grocery stores and general automotive repair have fewer in Lexington, KY.
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Data: US Census Bureau ACS 2024 5-year estimates and County Business Patterns 2023. Updated 2026-09-29.