It is located in the transit between the Páramo Leonés and the mountains of León and acts as the backbone of the comarcas of Maragatería, La Cepeda and the Ribera del Órbigo.

The city is the head of one of the most extensive and oldest dioceses of Spain, whose jurisdiction covers half of the province of León and part of Ourense and Zamora.

[4] Astorga lies in the area of the Maragatos, a small ethnic and cultural community with distinctive customs and architecture.

The timeline of history that includes Astorga has artifactual evidence stretching back over 200,000 years, predating the Paleolithic.

Astorga, in the Iron Age, came under the cultural influence of the Celts; the local Celtic peoples inhabited the area around 275 BC, known as the Astures and the Cantabri.

The tribe of the Gallaeci 60,000 strong, according to Paulus Orosius, faced the Roman forces led by Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus in 137 BC in a battle at the River Douro.

The final extinction of Celtic resistance was the aim of the violent and ruthless Cantabrian Wars fought under the Emperor Augustus from 28 to 19 BC.

In 35 AD as mining plans developed, this Roman Hispania castra was redesigned and built with the help of the army, into a city.

He documented the conversion of the Suebic King Remismund to Arianism, and worked to restore the churches destroyed by the Visigoths.

The bishop was able to travel to Rome, from which he brought back what is believed to be a relic of the True Cross, for which he founded the Monastery of Santo Toribio de Liébana, where it is still preserved.

After the Berbers' withdrawal to join the blazing Berber rebellion (739–742) and the campaigns of Alfonso I of Asturias (742 – 757) against the Andalusians, the city was abandoned, being in the largely empty buffer zone between Moors and Christians known at the time as "The Desert of the Duero," and was part of the Repoblación ("repopulation") effort carried out a century later during the reign of Ordoño I of Asturias (850 – 866).

Astorga suffered from decadence until the 11th century, when the city became a major stop on the French route for the pilgrims to the tomb of Saint James in Santiago de Compostela.

At the synod held in Valladolid in 1432, the Astorga community claimed privileges exempting them from payment of crown taxes.

In the Official Journal of the European Union UNE-EN 45011 Regulatory Board, through the Certification Committee, established standards for Mantecadas de Astorga.

The movie The Way is an inspirational film of 2010 starring Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez walking the Camino de Santiago.

During the second half of the 19th century, Astorga enjoyed the arrival of the railway and development of the current city, which expands outside its Roman walls.

Astorga is again the nexus of a significant network of road connections, and it recovered the social and economical vibrancy, which has tourism as one of its main focal points.