[2] Nobles County comprises the Worthington, MN Micropolitan Statistical Area.

The first white man to set foot on the land was Joseph Nicollet who came to map out the area in 1842.

[3] The county was named for William H. Nobles, a member of the Minnesota territorial legislature in 1854 and 1856.

In Autumn 1856 he began the construction of a wagon road for the US government, crossing southwestern Minnesota and Nobles County, to extend from Fort Ridgely to South Pass in the Rocky Mountains.

[4] Nobles County was created by the Minnesota Territory legislature just before the full force of the Panic of 1857 was felt.

During the summer of 1867, a mail route was established from Blue Earth through the Graham Lakes settlement to Yankton, South Dakota.

In 1871, a group of men from Toledo, Ohio organized a company to locate a colony of settlers in some western county.

After traveling 20,000 miles in the Midwest, they decided on Nobles County and by the spring of 1872, hundreds of people came in and took up land.

This led to rapid settlement in Rushmore, Adrian, and the western portions of the county.

The 1860 census of Nobles County showed 11 families, 35 persons, (3 from Norway, 3 from Bavaria, 1 from Ireland and the rest from the eastern states).

Food processing and fabricated metals are important manufacturing sectors, and tourism is a growing industry that benefits from the county's lakes, parks, and historical sites.

[13] Nobles County sits atop the Buffalo Ridge, a large expanse of rolling hills in southwestern Minnesota reaching a height of 1,995 ft (608 m) ASL.

The Buffalo Ridge marks the most southerly extent of the last glaciation, and extends 60 miles (97 km) through Lincoln, Lyon, Pipestone, Murray, Rock, and Nobles counties.

[14] Its bedrock is formed of Cretaceous shale, sandstone and clay that lie above the pinkish-red Upper Precambrian Sioux Quartzite.

[14] This covering results in the creation of an area with long, gently sloping hills.

Loess is an easily eroded material, resulting in few lakes and wetlands in the inner coteau area.

Nobles County voters have tended to vote Republican in the past several decades.