This is a list of the one hunred and twenty counties in the U.S. state of Kentucky. Despite ranking 37th in size by area, Kentucky has 120 counties, third in the U.S. behind Texas's 254 and Georgia's 159. The original motivation for having so many counties was to ensure that residents in the days of poor roads and horseback travel could make a round trip from their home to the county seat and back in a single day, as well as being able to travel from one county seat to the next in the same fashion. Later, however, politics began to play a part, with citizens who disagreed with the present county government simply petitioning the state to create a new county. The 1891 Kentucky Constitution placed stricter limits on county creation, stipulating that a new county: