Shefford County is an historical county in southern Quebec, Canada. It is named after a small town in Bedford County, England of the same name and is in the Eastern Townships region of Québec. Topographically, part of the county is situated on the western foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, giving the county landscape its beautiful rolling scenery in the east, with relatively flat lands in the west. The county contains 4 small lakes, Lake Waterloo near Waterloo, Lake Granby in Granby Township, Lake Roxton, Lake Roxton in Roxton Township, and Lake Stukely in Stukely Township. The first 3 flow into the Yamaska River, while the fourth feeds into the St-François River, both of which flow northwards and are tributaries to the St Lawrence. A prominent feature of the county is Mount Shefford in the Township of Shefford , one of a series of the Monteregian Hills that lie in a line between the Appalachian Mountains and the St Lawrence River. The county is shaped almost like a trapezoid. It is bounded in the south by Brome County (48 km; 45 degrees N 17'), in the north and northwest by Bagot County (35 km; 45 degrees N 41'), Richmond and Sherbrooke Counties in the east (35 km; 72 degrees W 15') and in the west by Rouville County (34 km; 72 degrees W 46'). The county is divided into 7 townships of which 6 are almost squares, 3 in the north (from east to west, the Township of Ely , the Township of Roxton and the Township of Milton ) and 3 in the south (from east to west, the Township of Stukely , the Township of Shefford and the Township of Granby ). The Township of Upton is a strip of land located in the northwestern corner of the county and measures 1,25 km by 6,25 km. The county seat is Waterloo , located in the Township of Shefford. The best known town in the county is Granby, located in the township of the same name, known for its annual song and musical festival. Another well known town is Bromont, located in the southwestern corner of Shefford Township. Among Bromont's claims to fame are the fact the 1976 Summer Olympics equestrian events were held in Bromont, an IBM plant, and South Korean automaker Hyundai built a car assembly plant there in the 1980s, only to dismantle it more than a decade later.
In the early 1980s Quebec abolished its counties, and Shefford County was divided and transferred to Acton Regional County Municipality (north) Les Maskoutains Regional County Municipality (northwest) La Haute-Yamaska Regional County Municipality (west) Brome-Missisquoi Regional County Municipality (southwest) Memphremagog Regional County Municipality (southeast) and Le Val-Saint-Francois Regional County Municipality (northeat).
