Easton is an incorporated town in and the county seat of Talbot County, Maryland, United States. The population was 17,101 at the 2020 census, with an estimated population of 17,342 in 2022. The primary ZIP Code is 21601, and the secondary is 21606. The primary phone exchange is 822, the auxiliary exchanges are 690, 819, 820, 763, and 770, and the area code is 410.

The town of Easton received its official beginning from an Act of the Assembly of the Province of Maryland dated November 4, 1710. The act was entitled, "An Act for the Building of a Court House for Talbot County, at Armstrong's Old Field near Pitt's Bridge". Pitt's Bridge crossed a stream forming the headwaters of the Tred Avon or Third Haven River. It was located at a point where North Washington Street crosses this stream, now enclosed in culverts, north of the Talbottown Shopping Center, and passes under the Electric Plant property. Prior to this date, the court had met at York, near the mouth of Skipton Creek. The court decided that this location was not convenient to all sections of the county and, in order to change the location, the above act of the Assembly was passed. As a result of this act, two acres of land were purchased from Philemon Armstrong, at a cost of 15,000 pounds of tobacco. Upon this tract, the same plot upon which the present Talbot County Courthouse now stands, the court house, a brick building 20 x 30 feet, was erected at a cost of 115,000 pounds of tobacco. The courts of the county were held in this building from 1712 until 1794. A tavern to accommodate those who attended court was one of the first buildings erected; stores and dwellings followed. The village was then known as "Talbot Court House". These were not the first buildings in the area. The frame meeting house of the Society of Friends was built between 1682 and 1684. The Wye plantation was settled in the 1650s by Welsh Puritan and wealthy planter Edward Lloyd and is owned and occupied by the 11th generation of that family.

Easton may be named because of its location east of Saint Michaels; however, it is more likely that it was named after Easton in Somerset, England.

In 1916, the town erected the "Talbot Boys" statue in honor of Confederate soldiers from Talbot County. It stood for 107 years before being removed in 2022 after years of controversy.

In 1919, Isaiah Fountain, a black farmer from Trappe, was the last person to be legally executed on the Eastern Shore after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a girl aged 13 to 14 on April 1 or 2, 1919. Due to the theatrics and sensationalized nature of the case by the local media, it became a national story. After the first day of his trial, a mob of 2,000 assembled on courthouse grounds, and some of which attempted to grab and lynch Fountain. He remained unharmed and was able to escape through an open window. He was subsequently rearrested and found guilty on April 25, 1919. A retrial for Fountain was granted in July of 1919 with a change of venue to Baltimore County, in Towson. He was found guilty again in May of 1920 in the retrial and finally executed for the crime on June 11, 1920.

In 2008, a lost painting of a Paris street scene by Édouard Cortès was discovered amongst donated items at a Goodwill Industries store in Easton. After an alert store manager noticed that it was a signed original, the painting was auctioned for $40,600 at Sotheby's.

In 2011, local officials erected a statue of Frederick Douglass, the noted abolitionist, who was born a slave in 1818 at the Wye River plantation in northern Talbot County.

In 2015, and again in August 2020, the Talbot County Council voted against removing the Talbot Boys statue, but in September 2021, the council voted to remove the statue. On March 14, 2022, the statue was removed.