What is the name of the fictional county in William Faulkner's novels?

The fictional county in William Faulkner’s novels is Yoknapatawpha County. Faulkner created it as an imagined Mississippi setting modeled largely on Lafayette County, where he lived, and its county seat of Jefferson reflects the real city of Oxford.

Yoknapatawpha became the central landscape of Faulkner’s literary world. Beginning with Sartoris in 1929, he placed most of his novels and more than 50 stories there, connecting families, communities, and historical events across generations. The setting appears in works including The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Absalom, Absalom!, and Light in August.

The name is linked to the Yocona River and is commonly explained through Chickasaw words associated with “split land.” Faulkner also described the county as his “apocryphal county.” A common mix-up is confusing Jefferson with the county itself: Jefferson is the fictional county seat, while Oxford is the real Mississippi town that inspired it.