Essex County is located in Southwestern Ontario and covers an area at the southernmost tip of Canada. The county seat is Windsor and the administrative seat is Essex. The population of Essex County is approximately 375,000.

Essex was one of the first counties to be settled in Ontario, mostly by French people in the mid-1700s. Around 1747, the first permanent settlements began to appear on what is now the Canadian side of the Detroit River. Lower down the river, lands were occupied by native people known as Wyandots or "Hurons", around the Mission of Bois Blanc (French for White Wood) as a centre opposite the island of the same name. The Mission was eventually abandoned and re-established closer to what became Sandwich Township, and was closer to the safety of Fort Detroit.