The Palouse is compromised of Latah County in the North Western Idaho panhandle and Whitman County in Eastern Washington. The area offers a variety of landscapes from forested mountains, steep canyons, and fertile rolling hills. It also houses two renowned Universities, the University of Idaho and Washington State University.

Latah County has the distinction of being the only county in the United States created by an Act of Congress. In 1887, Idaho's delegate in Congress introduced a bill for the creation of Latah County, designating the boundaries and county seat as they are today. The bill passed Congress and president Grover Cleveland approved it in 1888. The University of Idaho was founded in 1888 and thus began the association between agriculture and higher learning in the county. Latah County consists of the incorportated cities of Bovill, Deary, Genessee, Juliaetta, Kendrick, Moscow, Potlatch, Troy, and Onaway and the communities of Avon, Cornwall, Hampton, Harvard, Helmer, Joel, Princeton, and Viola.

Whitman County was organized by the territorial legislature on November 29, 1871 by partitioning what was then Stevens County. The land within the county was quickly converted to agriculture production. Most of the production revolved around field crops such as wheat, oats, barley, and flax straw. A major contributor to the county's agricultural richness was the State Agricultural College of Washington, a land grant college founded at Pullman in 1890 (now Washington State University). Whitman County consists of the cities of Albion, Belmont, Colfax, Colton, Endicott, Farmington, Garfield, Hay, Hooper, Lacrosse, Lamont, Malden, Oakesdale, Palouse, Pullman, Rosalia, Saint John, Steptoe, Tekoa, Thornton, and Uniontown.