Its name is in honor of William Parish Chilton, Sr. (1810–1871), a lawyer who became Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and later represented Montgomery County in the Congress of the Confederate States of America.

Chilton County is included in the Birmingham Metropolitan Statistical Area.

It is home to swamps, prairies, and mountains due to the foothills of the Appalachians which end in the county, the Coosa River basin, and its proximity to the Black Belt Prairie that was long a center of cotton production.

On December 17, 1874, the petitioners accepted the suggestion of Chilton County, even though the Chief Justice had not lived within its boundaries.

[15] School districts include:[16] The County Commission is made up of seven members elected by cumulative vote (CV).

According to the 1990 Census, African Americans constituted 9.9% of the county's voting age population."

[17] African Americans in Alabama had been essentially disenfranchised by the 1901 state constitution, which required payment of a poll tax and qualification by a literacy test in order to register to vote.

Discriminatory in practice as administered by white officials, this system excluded most blacks from the state's political system for decades in the 20th century before Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

After that, African Americans were able finally to register and vote in the county and state for the first time since the late 19th century.

The last Democrat to win the county in a presidential election is Jimmy Carter, who won it by a majority in 1976.