As of the 2020 Chinese census, its total population was 6,563,520 inhabitants, of whom 1,415,173 lived in the built-up (or metro) area made of three urban districts and Xinshao County largely conurbated.

The 23,000,000-acre (93,000 km2) NanShan Pastures is one of the biggest in South Central China and provide dairy products and meat for Hunanese.

During the later Spring and Autumn period, official Bai Shan (白善) of Chu used to construct a city named Baigong (白公城) in Shaoyang.

During the Three Kingdoms era, northern part of Linling including today Shaoyang city was divided from it and designated new Zhaoling commandery (昭陵).

Following Western Jin reunited Wu in 280 (or first year of Taikang era), emperor Wu changed the Commandery's name Zhaoling to Shaoling (邵陵) to avoid taboo of his father (Sima Zhao, 司马昭).

Winter begins relatively dry but not sunny and becomes progressively damper and cloudier; spring brings both the most frequent and heaviest rain of the year.

[12] Although it is, by 2010 Census permanent resident population, the second-largest prefecture-level division of Hunan, its GDP (4.62% of provincial output) places it ninth within the province, making it an archetypal example of a large-population, relatively backwards-economy city.