[3] Muskegon County comprises the Muskegon, MI Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is part of the larger Grand Rapids-Kentwood-Muskegon, MI Combined Statistical Area.

Around 1812, Jean Baptiste Recollect and Pierre Constant set up trading posts in the area.

By the Treaty of Washington (1836), Native Americans ceded parts of Michigan, including future Muskegon County, to the United States.

This opened up the area to greater settlement by European Americans, who developed farms.

By land By water As of the 2010 United States Census,[16] there were 172,188 people living in the county.

Prior to 1932, Muskegon County was a Republican Party stronghold in presidential elections, aside from 1912 where the split Republican vote primarily backed former president & third-party candidate Theodore Roosevelt.

However, after narrowly losing the county in both 2016 and 2020 amid his surge in the Rust Belt, Donald Trump flipped it in 2024.

The county government operates the jail, maintains rural roads, operates the major local courts, keeps files of deeds and mortgages, maintains vital records, administers public health regulations, and participates with the state in the provision of welfare and other social services.

The county board of commissioners controls the budget but has only limited authority to make laws or ordinances.

In Michigan, most local government functions — police and fire, building and zoning, tax assessment, street maintenance, etc.