The racial makeup of the county was 95.80% White, 0.86% Asian, 0.80% Black or African American, 0.19% Native American, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 1.02% from other races, and 1.31% from two or more races. There were 37,252 housing units at an average density of 63 per square mile (24/km 2). The population density was 120 inhabitants per square mile (46/km 2).
Since its establishment in 1795, the county seat has been situated at Sevierville (also named for Sevier), the eighth-oldest city in Tennessee. The county takes its name from John Sevier, governor of the failed State of Franklin and first governor of Tennessee, who played a prominent role during the early years of settlement in the region. Sevier County was formed on Septemfrom part of neighboring Jefferson County, and has retained its original boundaries ever since. Although they used the region primarily as hunting grounds, the Chicakamauga faction of the Cherokee vehemently fought white settlement in their territory, frequently leading raids on households, even through the signing of various peace treaties, alternating short periods of peace with violent hostility, until forcibly marched from their territory by the U.S. By the late 17th-century, however, the Cherokee, whose ancestors were living in the mountains at the time of the Spaniards' visit, had become the dominant tribe in the region. In the mid-16th century, Spanish expeditions led by Hernando de Soto (1540) and Juan Pardo (1567) passed through what is now Sevier County, reporting that the region was part of the domain of Chiaha, a minor Muskogean chiefdom centered around a village located on a now-submerged island just upstream from modern Douglas Dam. Prior to the arrival of white settlers in present-day Sevier County in the mid-18th century, the area had been inhabited for as many as 20,000 years by nomadic and semi-nomadic Native Americans.