The Maidu were the people living in the area of Sutter County when European settlers arrived.

His Hock Farm, established in 1841 on the Feather River just south of present-day Yuba City, was the site of the first major farm in the Central Valley, and used extensive slave labor from Natives in order to function.

In 1850, Sutter retired to Hock Farm when the gold rush led to him losing his holdings in Sacramento.

Sutter County is the birthplace (Yuba City, 1858) of John Joseph Montgomery, who was the first American to successfully pilot a heavier-than-air craft, 20 years before the Wright Brothers, and who held the first patent for an "aeroplane."

Sutter County also has the State Feather River Wildlife Area, consisting of the Nelson Slough, O'Connor Lakes, Abbott Lake, Shanghai Bend, and Morse Road Units in Sutter County.

Yuba Sutter Transit operates local bus service, as well as commuter runs to Downtown Sacramento.

Sutter is a strongly Republican county in presidential and congressional elections.

On November 4, 2008, Sutter County voted 70.7% for Proposition 8 which amended the California Constitution to ban same-sex marriages.

[citation needed] The following table includes the number of incidents reported and the rate per 1,000 persons for each type of offense.

The 2010 United States census reported that Sutter County had a population of 94,737.

21.2% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.

The population ranking of the following table is based on the 2010 census of Sutter County.