| County: | Forrest County |
| State: | Mississippi |
| Ex Image: | Hattiesburg District Courthouse.jpg |
| Ex Image Size: | 220px |
| Ex Image Cap: | Hattiesburg Municipal Court. |
| Founded: | 1908[1] |
| Seat Wl: | Hattiesburg |
| Largest City Wl: | Hattiesburg |
| Area Total Sq Mi: | 470 |
| Area Land Sq Mi: | 466 |
| Area Water Sq Mi: | 3.9 |
| Area Percentage: | 0.8 |
| Population As Of: | 2020 |
| Population Total: | 78158 |
| Pop Est As Of: | 2023 |
| Population Est: | 78208 |
| Population Density Sq Mi: | auto |
| Web: | http://forrestcountyms.us/ |
| District: | 4th |
| Time Zone: | Central |
Forrest County is a county located in the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2020 census, the population was 78,158.[2] Its county seat and largest city is Hattiesburg.[3] The county was created from Perry County in 1908 and named in honor of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general in the American Civil War and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Forrest County is part of the Hattiesburg, MS Metropolitan Statistical Area.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of, of which is land and (0.8%) is water.[4]
| White (non-Hispanic) | 43,121 | 55.17% | |
| Black or African American (non-Hispanic) | 28,151 | 36.02% | |
| Native American | 177 | 0.23% | |
| Asian | 789 | 1.01% | |
| Pacific Islander | 29 | 0.04% | |
| Other/Mixed | 2,633 | 3.37% | |
| Hispanic or Latino | 3,258 | 4.17% |
Forrest County has not supported the National Democratic ticket for president since 1944, when it voted overwhelmingly for Franklin Roosevelt in his landslide record fourth term victory. That is the longest such streak of any county in the state. Only twice since then has it not voted Republican, in 1948 when it backed the States Rights ticket of Strom Thurmond and then-Mississippi Governor Fielding Wright, and in 1968 when it voted for George Wallace and Curtis LeMay.