The county is located on the high plateau of the Blue Ridge Mountains and surrounded by the Little River.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Floyd proved popular with people in the era's counterculture, particularly those who wanted to live in closer contact with nature.

Floyd County's recorded history begins with the arrival of traders, trappers and hunters in Southwest Virginia in the 18th century.

The earliest known travel way through present day Floyd County was the Trader's Path, running from east to west across the Roanoke River where Back Creek enters the river, by John Mason's, R. Poage's, the headwaters of Back Creek and southwest over Bent Mountain.

The first Commonwealth's Attorney was William Ballard Preston, a nephew of John Floyd, who would later serve as Secretary of the United States Navy.

On January 23, 1896, the General Assembly passed an Act officially changing the name of the town from Jacksonville to Floyd.

[6] In the late 1990s, the Rivendell community was established by a group of Christians so they could practice a lifestyle consistent with their Reformed Church's interpretations of the Bible and also, in part, to be better isolated from possible societal disruptions caused by the year 2000 problem.

[7] Floyd County was also a setting for the ministry of Reverend Bob Childress, whose life was chronicled in the book The Man Who Moved a Mountain.

[9] Both the Floyd Country Store and County Sales, founded in the 1960s,[10] are featured on the Virginia Heritage Music Trail called "The Crooked Road.

"[11] In the early 21st century, Floyd became the home of an annual world music festival called FloydFest.

Floyd County-based old time string band The Alum Ridge Boys & Ashlee won first prize at the 85th Annual Old Fiddlers' Convention held in Galax, Virginia.

Floyd County is one of the 423 counties served by the Appalachian Regional Commission,[14] and it is identified as part of "Greater Appalachia" by Colin Woodard in his book American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.

The Little River, the county's largest waterway, is formed by three main branches, or forks: the East, West, and South (also known as Dodd's Creek).

This is due to the fact that the county's inhabitants largely deserted the Confederate army during the Civil War,[24] so that it was one of very few white areas in antebellum slave states to endorse Radical Reconstruction.