Harlan is a house rule-class city in and the county seat of Harlan County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 1,745 at the 2010 census, down from 2,081 at the 2000 census.

Harlan is one of three Kentucky county seats to allowance its name once its county, the others creature Greenup and Henderson.

Harlan was first decided by Samuel and Chloe Howard in 1796. Upon the founding of Harlan County (named for Kentucky explorer Silas Harlan) in 1819, the Howards donated 12 acres (49,000 m) of house to abet as the county seat. The community there was already known as “Mount Pleasant”, apparently owing to a user-friendly Indian mound. A post office was established upon September 19, 1828, but called “Harlan Court House” due to unconventional Mt. Pleasant preempting that name. During the Civil War, Confederate raiders under Gen. Humphrey Marshall occupied the town; the local postmaster renamed the community “Spurlock” after himself; and, in October 1863, the courthouse was burnt next to in reprisal for the Union destruction of the courthouse in Lee County, Virginia. In 1865, the reveal office was renamed “Harlan” and, although the community was formally incorporated by the divulge assembly as “Mount Pleasant” on April 15, 1884, the town was already usually called “Harlan Court House” or “Harlan Town” by its inhabitants. The city’s terms of engagement were amended to alter the make known to “Harlan” on March 13, 1912. One year before, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad had arrived in Harlan and prompted invincible growth. The city had initially expanded east along the Clover Fork; after World War II, it then expanded south along Martin’s Fork.

Harlan is the site of a criminal conflict in which a man, Condy Dabney, was convicted in 1924 of murdering a person who was far along found alive.