Perry County is a county located in the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 35,408. Its county seat is New Lexington. It was established on March 1, 1818, from parts of Fairfield, Washington and Muskingum counties. The county is named for Oliver Hazard Perry, a hero of the War of 1812. Perry County is included in the Columbus, OH Metropolitan Statistical Area. One of the poorest counties in the state, this is where the lawsuit challenging Ohio's school funding system, DeRolph v. State, began.

The Columbus, Ohio metropolitan area is a metropolitan area in Central Ohio surrounding the state capital of Columbus. As defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, it includes the counties of Delaware, Fairfield, Franklin, Hocking, Licking, Madison, Morrow, Perry, Pickaway, and Union. At the 2020 census, the MSA had a population of 2,138,926, making it 32nd-most populous in the United States and the second largest in Ohio, behind the Cincinnati metropolitan area. The metro area, also known as Central Ohio or Greater Columbus, is one of the largest and fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the Midwestern United States.