The Village of McFarland is located on Lake Waubesa against the southeast side of the City of Madison in Dane County. The population was 8,991 at the 2020 United States Census. McFarland has nearly 43.50 road miles, is slightly less than 5 square miles in sum land area, and is allowance of the Madison Metropolitan Statistical Area.

U.S. Route 51 passes through McFarland and serves as the main connection point between the cities of Madison and Stoughton. Its ZIP code is 53558. It is the tenth-most populous city in Dane County after Madison.

Several burial mounds from the Woodland become old are known as the Lewis Mound Group in the village’s Indian Mound Park.

McFarland was founded in 1856 by William H. McFarland. Early industries in the village included wheat and tobacco farming, harvesting winter ice and fish on nearby Lake Waubesa for rail shipment to markets in Chicago. Later, a small resort industry developed along the eastern shore of Lake Waubesa, including Edwards Park and Larson’s Beach. After World War II, the village became a bedroom community for Madison. In the late 1950s, McFarland annexed the recently build up petroleum tank farms north of the village, expanding the village’s tax base. This allowed the McFarland School District to fund a new tall school. In 1989 a major highway project on the handy Madison highway called the Beltline made commuting to the village much easier and enabled sharp residential growth.