[2] The county was named for Robert Wilkinson Furnas, the second governor of the state of Nebraska.

[3] In the Nebraska license plate system, Furnas County is represented by the prefix 38 (it had the thirty-eighth-largest number of vehicles registered in the county when the license plate system was established in 1922).

The Republican River flows eastward across the upper central part of the county.

[4] As of the 2000 United States Census,[10] there were 5,324 people, 2,278 households, and 1,489 families in the county.

In only one national election since 1916 the county been carried by a Democratic Party presidential candidate.