[3][4] Lake County is part of the Cleveland, OH Metropolitan Statistical Area.

During the early 1900s, many wealthy families in Cleveland maintained large estates in the county for use as their summer homes.

Mentor Marsh, an abandoned channel of the Grand River, is an Ohio State Nature Preserve.

33.0% of the adult population has a Bachelor's Degree or higher, slightly above the 32.0% rate for Ohio as a whole.

[17] In terms of ancestry, 26.4% were German, 18.9% were Irish, 16.4% were Italian, 11.5% were English, 7.6% were Polish, 5.4% were Hungarian, and 3.9% were American.

CSX and Norfolk Southern provide railroad main line through-freight service.

The recently formed Grand River Railroad, operating on former Baltimore & Ohio track, serves the Fairport Harbor area linking the Morton Salt plant with CSX at Painesville.

Lake County is part of the Cleveland-area media and television market.

The News-Herald, a Lake County newspaper, has been headquartered in Willoughby since its inception.

Holden Arboretum, one of the largest arboreta and botanical gardens in the United States, is located in Kirtland.

The site preserves the Lawnfield estate and surrounding property of James A. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, and includes the first presidential library established in the United States.

Kirtland, which served as the headquarters for the Latter Day Saint movement during most of the 1830s,[28] also hosts the nearby Historic Kirtland Village, which is owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is made up of historic buildings and sites important to the early Latter Day Saint movement.

A portion of the Grand River Valley American Viticultural Area is located in the eastern half of the county.

Squire's Castle is located within the North Chagrin Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks in Willoughby Hills.

Classic Park, the home field of the Lake County Captains, a Class A minor league baseball team affiliated with the Cleveland Guardians, is located in Eastlake.