汤普金斯县被卡尤加湖分割开来，卡尤加湖是冰川形成的五指湖中第二长的湖泊。 该湖的核心水深435英尺，源头位于南端，水源来自溪流，溪流穿过构成该县地质基础的页岩和石灰岩下的峡谷。 目前，该县面积为 476.1平方英里；南端地形崎岖，康涅狄格山高达 2,095.97。 脚 北部地势较为平缓，土地肥沃。
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从1832年开始，随着伊萨卡-乌戈铁路的开通，铁路发展将汤普金斯县与市场和目的地连接起来。 到1870世纪，有四条主要铁路线穿过伊萨卡。 湖上旅行始于1823，一直持续到二十世纪。
伊萨卡学院于1892年在伊萨卡市中心的建筑中开学，起初是一所音乐学院，后来扩展到多个领域。 学院于1969年迁至南山。 该县的重要工业包括伊萨卡枪械公司、托马斯-莫尔斯飞机公司和格罗顿铁桥公司--所有这些公司现在都已不复存在。 从1914年开始的十年间，伊萨卡一直在拍摄电影。
Population growth in the twentieth century continued only slowly, although the university from 1885 increased yearly in size bringing faculty, hiring local staff, and drawing students in ever-growing numbers. In 1910 there were 33,647 residents in the county. The increase thereafter was slight until 1940 when the total population of Tompkins County was 42,340. In the next ten years the overall population jumped by more than 16,000 residents to 59,122, with the major gain occurring in Ithaca, reflecting the dramatic growth of Cornell University following the second World War. An additional jump by 10,000 residents between 1960 and 1970 brought the county population to 77,064. That decade’s figures reveal a shift in living patterns with a major increase in the Town of Ithaca, especially in the northeast portion and in the areas adjacent to Cornell.
By the 2000 federal census, the population of Tompkins County was 96,501. The ethnic composition of the county had also changed. There had been a major influx of Irish immigrants in the 1830s and ‘40s. Late in the nineteenth-century, Italians and some identified as Hungarians began to arrive. Early in the twentieth century newcomers included Italians, Hungarians, Greeks, and Finns. In 1900 there were two Chinese listed in the Federal Census. By 2000 the County housed a diversified Asian community along with Hispanics, Russians, and a small but significant contingent of Tibetans who founded a monastery, first on North Aurora Street and in 2008 along the Danby Road (route 96 south). The student population at Cornell is nearly twenty thousand.
The major business of the county is education, with Cornell, Ithaca College, the Tompkins Cortland Community College, and six public school systems plus several private schools and the Community School of Music and Art (CSMA). Agriculture continues to be important; there is an active Farmer’s Market featuring food grown in the area. Tompkins County also attracts tourists to its Discovery Trail of important museums: the Museum of the Earth, the Sciencenter, the Johnson Art Museum, the History Center. More than sixty cultural organizations, including historical societies, drama companies, musical groups of all kinds, dance companies and an orchestra and opera society flourish. There is a stunning cycle of events each year that include the Ithaca Festival, which occurs the first weekend of June, the Grassroots Festival each summer, Light in Winter each January, and an Art Trail open all year long with featured weekend events in the spring and fall.
县机场附近有一个大型商业综合体。 全县有超过 80 家公司的创始人曾在该大学学习或任教。
传统上，伊萨卡市以外的县都是共和党投票区。 随着1950之后人口的增加，民主党的核心力量也随之增加，在1993年，县议会首次出现了民主党占多数的情况。
伊萨卡日报》（创刊于1814）、《康奈尔每日太阳报》[1880] 和新闻周刊《伊萨卡时报》每天为该郡提供服务。
该县的历史最早见于 H. Hurd 的《纽约州开蒙、斯凯勒、蒂奥加和汤普金斯县历史》（费城，1879）和 John Selkreg 的《汤普金斯县地标》（锡拉丘兹，1894）。 霍勒斯-金在1847中写了一篇关于伊萨卡的文章，H-C-古德温在1853中出版了《伊萨卡的过去和现在》，亨利-阿布特在1926中出版了《伊萨卡》。 最近的著作包括卡罗尔-卡门（Carol Kammen）的《汤普金斯郡的人种》（Peopling of Tompkins County：社会史》（因特拉肯，1985）和 Jane M. Dieckmann 著《汤普金斯县简史》（伊萨卡，1986）。 W. Glenn Norris 的《汤普金斯郡地名的起源》（伊萨卡，1951）或汤普金斯郡市政历史学家于2003出版的《汤普金斯郡地名增订本》也很有用。 还有简-M-迪克曼编辑的《汤普金斯县的城镇》（伊萨卡，1998）。 另请参阅《汤普金斯郡的建筑遗产》（附理查德-科思的照片），该书出版于 2002。