The city is located on a hill at an altitude of 358 metres at the confluence of the Ebro and Cidacos rivers, and has an area of 91.41 km².

Its status as seat of a comarca and judicial district make it a service-industry city in administrative, commercial and leisure fields.

Rome conquered the town in 187 BC and brought it to its highest point of importance as an administrative centre for surrounding regions.

It was only taken four years later by Pompey's legate Lucius Afranius, after a lot of inhabitants had died from starvation and there had occurred cannibalism.

The Christian Roman poet Prudentius may have inhabited at some point in Calahorra, who pinpoints it on the territory of the Vascones in the 4th century.