The county name recognized David Olmsted (1822-1861),[4] a member of the first territorial council and the fourth mayor of St.

Olmsted County is a fairly unusual mix of urban and rural areas in that there's no transition or buffer between the two environments.

Rochester, Minnesota's third-largest city with roughly 118,000 people, sits in the Zumbro River valley at the center of the county.

The county terrain consists of low rolling hills, etched by drainage gullies and marked by occasional buttes.

[7] The terrain slopes to the east and north,[8] and its highest point is a hill 7.5 miles (12.1 km) west of Stewartville, at 1,380 ft (420 m) ASL.

Olmsted has historically been a Republican-leaning county, but rapid population growth in Rochester has made it more competitive in recent years.

In 2020, Joe Biden won it by nearly 11 points, the best performance of any Democratic presidential nominee since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

Although it has trended Democratic at the presidential level, Olmsted County continues to lean Republican in state and local races, with split ticket voting becoming more common.

In 2018, then-Representative Tim Walz benefitted from high recognition in the district with a reputation at the time as a moderate.

Republican nominee Doug Wardlow concurrently won the greatest number of votes in Olmsted County in the 2018 Minnesota Attorney General election.