[2] Dawson County is part of the Lexington, NE Micropolitan Statistical Area.

In the Nebraska license plate system, Dawson County is represented by the prefix 18 (it had the 18th-largest number of vehicles registered in the county when the license plate system was established in 1922).

[3][4] Other sources state that it was named after Pennsylvania Congressman John Littleton Dawson.

[5] Dawson County lies near the center of Nebraska, in the portion of the state that observes Central Time.

In the 2000 United States Census it was reported that 32.0% were of German, 6.7% American, 6.7% Irish and 6.4% English ancestry.