It was formed from parts of McLean, LaSalle, and Iroquois counties, and named after Edward Livingston,[3] a prominent politician who was mayor of New York City and represented New York in the United States House of Representatives and Louisiana in both houses of Congress.

He later served as Andrew Jackson's Secretary of State and as Minister to France.

Although he had no connections to Illinois, the General Assembly found him accomplished enough to name a county after him.

[5] As of the 2010 United States census, there were 38,950 people, 14,613 households, and 9,741 families residing in the county.

[15] Dwight Correctional Center is within Nevada Township in an unincorporated area in the county.

The solitary Democrat to win a majority of the county's vote since the Civil War has been Franklin D. Roosevelt in his 1932 landslide triumph over Herbert Hoover.

Since 1940, only Lyndon Johnson in his 1964 landslide victory over the conservative Barry Goldwater has won more than forty percent of the county's vote.