It borders Wilhelmstadt in the south, Staaken and Falkenhagener Feld in the west, Hakenfelde in the north as well as Haselhorst, Siemensstadt and Westend (in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district) in the east.

Spandau proper is subdivided into four historic neighbourhoods (Ortslagen): The city was founded at the confluence of the rivers Spree and Havel.

It was first mentioned as Spandowe in 1197 in a deed of Otto II, Margrave of Brandenburg – 40 years earlier than the Cölln part of medieval Berlin.

The poet and revolutionary Gottfried Kinkel was an inmate of the Spandau town prison from 1849, until he was freed by his friend Carl Schurz on the night of 6 November 1850.

After the death of its last inmate, Rudolf Hess in 1987, Spandau Prison was completely demolished by the Allied powers and later replaced by a shopping mall.