[2] The county is named after Joseph Wood, a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly.

[4] The geographic center of Wisconsin is in Wood County, nine miles southeast of Marshfield.

[6] The Wisconsin River cuts across the southeast corner, a corridor of sand flats, islands and oxbows.

The remainder of the county is drained by smaller streams and rivers, punctuated by isolated hills like Powers Bluff.

This area is generally flat and marshy now because meltwater rivers from the glacier and streams from land to the north carried sand and silt out into the glacial lake, where the sediment settled beneath its still waters.

[10]The north of the county was shaped by earlier glaciers, which deposited glacial till, the basis for the heavy soil there.

Much of the county except for the northeast corner is underlain by a layer of Cambrian sandstone, formed long before the last ice age.

[11] Most of the original sandstone layer has been eroded away and the remainder is usually buried under glacial till, but it can be seen in gravel pits and a few bluffs.

[7] A marker on the bluff says it is a "worn down peak of an ancient mountain range which once covered northern Wisconsin.

[19] Additionally, there were 59 reported induced abortions performed on women of Wood County residence in 2017, a figure higher than the records for the preceding four years.

[21] Wood County voted Republican in presidential elections from 1940 to 1992, the only exception being Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.

The county became competitive between 1988 and 2012, during which time Wisconsin as a whole voted Democratic in every presidential race.