The Kentucky Bend, variously called the New Madrid Bend, Madrid Bend, Bessie Bend, or Bubbleland, is an exclave of Fulton County, Kentucky, encircled by the states of Tennessee and Missouri. It is a portion of a peninsula defined by an oxbow loop meander of the Mississippi River, and its inclusion in the state of Kentucky stems from uncertainties of the course of the Mississippi River when the boundary between Tennessee and Kentucky was established. Kentucky Bend is the extreme southwestern corner of Kentucky. The peninsula is traversed by the southern line of latitude of the state of Kentucky, at the banks of the Mississippi River. The only highway into the area is Tennessee State Route 22, whose continuation into Kentucky Bend at one time was signed as Kentucky State Route 313. As of the 2020 census, the population was 9 persons in this area, tabulated as the Kentucky Bend Census County Division. The mailing address of the area is Tiptonville, Tennessee. New Madrid, Missouri, is directly across the river to the north, but it is not connected to the bend by road or ferry. The closest crossings of the Mississippi River are the Dorena–Hickman Ferry and the Caruthersville Bridge located in nearby Dyer County. Geography According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Kentucky Bend covers a land area of , of which are land and , or 35.08%, are covered by water. The water area is primarily within the Mississippi River. Surveyors marking the boundary between Kentucky and Tennessee had only estimated where their line would meet the Mississippi; later, more detailed surveys revealed the location of this line to pass through north-south bends in the river, creating a division of the peninsula. The western border of Kentucky is designated as the Mississippi River, as is the eastern border of Missouri—thus the creation of a "notch" for Kentucky, but not for Tennessee. History The border predates the separation of Kentucky from Virginia and Tennessee from North Carolina. Its location stems from the Royal Colonial Boundary of 1665, which was meant to delimit overlapping inland claims of the Colony of Virginia and the Province of Carolina, respectively. In 1812, this area of the river was highly disrupted and was reported to even flow backward because of the 1811–1812 New Madrid series of earthquakes, some of the most powerful ever felt in the United States. The state of Tennessee contested the inclusion