It was named after the Township of Digby; this was named in honour of Rear Admiral Robert Digby, who dispatched HMS Atalanta to convey Loyalists from New York City in the spring of 1783 to Conway, which became known as Digby, as part of their evacuation and resettlement following the American Revolutionary War.

The Crown resettled thousands of Loyalists in Nova Scotia and other areas of Canada.

In addition to these two district municipalities, the county contains the Town of Digby and part of the Bear River Indian (First Nations) reserve.

As a census division in the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Digby County had a population of 17,062 living in 8,117 of its 9,681 total private dwellings, a change of -1.5% from its 2016 population of 17,323.

Highways and numbered routes that run through the county, including external routes that start or finish at the county boundary:[8]