Knox County, Tennessee
| Knox County, Tennessee | ||
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 Location in the U.S. state of Tennessee |
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 Tennessee's location in the U.S. |
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| Founded | June 11, 1792 | |
| Named for | Henry Knox | |
| Seat | Knoxville | |
| Largest city | Knoxville | |
| Area | ||
| • Total | 526 sq mi (1,362 km2) | |
| • Land | 508 sq mi (1,316 km2) | |
| • Water | 18 sq mi (47 km2), 3.5% | |
| Population (est.) | ||
| • (2015) | 451,324 | |
| • Density | 850/sq mi (328/km²) | |
| Congressional district | 2nd | |
| Website | knoxcounty |
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Knox County is a county in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2010 census, the population was 432,226, making it the third-most populous county in Tennessee. Its county seat is Knoxville, the third-most populous city in Tennessee.
Knox County is included in the Knoxville, TN Metropolitan Statistical Area.
The county is at the geographical center of the Great Valley of East Tennessee. Near the heart of the county is the origin of the Tennessee River at the union of the Holston and French Broad rivers.
Knox County was created on June 11, 1792, by Governor William Blount from parts of Greene and Hawkins counties, one of the few counties created when the state was still known as the Southwest Territory. It is one of nine United States counties named for American Revolutionary War general and first United States Secretary of War Henry Knox. Parts of Knox County later became Blount (1795), Anderson (1801), Roane (1801), and Union (1850) counties.
In 1783, an expedition into the Upper Tennessee Valley led by James White and Francis Alexander Ramsey explored what is now Knox County. White moved to what is now the Riverdale community in the eastern part of the county in 1785, and the following year constructed a fort a few miles to the west that would evolve into the city of Knoxville. Blount chose the fort as the capital of the Southwest Territory in 1790, and gave the new town the name "Knoxville" after his superior, Henry Knox.
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