[2] The county is named in honor of the first president of the United States, George Washington.

The Greenville, MS Micropolitan Statistical Area includes all of Washington County.

Located in the Mississippi Delta, Washington County was first developed for cotton cultivation in the antebellum years.

Most plantations were developed to have access to the rivers, which were the major transportation routes.

In the period from 1877 to 1950, Washington County had 12 documented lynchings of African Americans.

[4] Most occurred around the turn of the 20th century, as part of white imposition of Jim Crow conditions and suppression of black voting.

[5] As of the 2020 United States Census, there were 44,922 people, 17,988 households, and 11,232 families residing in the county.

Washington County's demographics are rooted in the region's mid-nineteenth-century ascendance in cotton production and, accordingly, importation of people as slaves.

Mid Delta Regional Airport, owned by the City of Greenville, is located in an unincorporated area in the county.