The county was located in the eastern part of Greater Romania, in the south of the historical region of Bessarabia, north of the Chilia branch of the Danube.

[1] Today, the territory of the former county is primarily in Ukraine, with a smaller part in the west belonging to Moldova.

At the end of the Crimean War, by the Treaty of Paris (1856), Southern Bessarabia was returned by the Russian Empire to Moldavia.

The area returned to Romanian administration as the Bessarabia Governorate following the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in July 1941.

A military administration was established and the region's Jewish population was either executed on the spot or deported to Transnistria, where further numbers were killed.