Hernando County is included in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area.

[3] In 1767, a group of Upper Creeks from Eufaula, Alabama, migrated to the Tampa Bay region and settled in what is now Hernando County.

[5] Fort DeSoto was soon established in the northeast edge of present-day Brooksville to protect these settlers in the area from Native Americans.

The fort became a small community center, trading post, and way station on the route to Tampa.

Further settlements started to grow near the fort beginning around 1845; two towns developed, Melendez and Pierceville, which would later merge to create Brooksville in 1856.

In December 1854, the legislature designated the small port town of Bayport the county seat.

In 1856, the citizens of Hernando County chose to rename the town, their new County Seat, Brooksville in honor of South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks, who in the same year beat fierce abolitionist Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in the Senate chambers, winning the Congressman great renown in the South.

In 1855, town founder Joseph Hale donated land for a county courthouse in the center of present-day Brooksville.

During the Civil War, Hernando County primarily contributed foodstuffs, cotton, and lumber to the Confederacy.

In early July, the expeditions, including 2 companies from the 2nd U.S. Florida Cavalry, marched northward from Anclote River to Brooksville, meeting some resistance from assembled Confederate troops hastily organized to protect the city.

[8] The Federal troops won this engagement (known locally as the Brooksville Raid[9] and marched to Bayport, where they and an auxiliary force landing from gunboats sacked Rebel operations.

[12] Arthur St. Clair, a minister, was lynched in Hernando County, Florida, in 1877 for performing the wedding of a black man and white woman.

Elevation in the county ranges from mean sea level along the Gulf coast to its highest natural point of 269 feet at Chinsegut Hill.

A total of 23.30% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14.70% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.

Hernando County is home to the largest (truck-to-truck) Wal-Mart Distribution Center in the U.S. approximately 1,600,000 square feet (150,000 m2) in size and located in Ridge Manor.

The last train directly serving the county, in Croom, was local Jacksonville - St. Petersburg service in 1955 or 1956 operated by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad.

[29] Notable abandoned railroad lines include a former branch of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad spanning from southeast of Ridge Manor through Istachatta that became part of the Withlacoochee State Trail, and a spur of this line from Croom west into Brooksville, which was replaced by a new rail trail called the Good Neighbor Trail.