Ciudad Real was one of the 49 provinces in which Spain was divided in the territorial reorganization of 1833, taking its name from its largest city and capital.

Initially a "pre-autonomous" region, the reorganization proposal finally took effect one week after the Statute of Autonomy of Castilla–La Mancha was approved on 10 August 1982.

Under this new arrangement, Castilla-La Mancha was subdivided into five provinces, Albacete, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Guadalajara, and Toledo, each named after its largest town and capital city.

[3] The largest towns in the province are Ciudad Real, with a population of 74,960 at the 2014 census, Puertollano with 50,608, Tomelloso with 38,080, Alcázar de San Juan with 31,650, and Valdepeñas with 30,705.

It has an area of 390 square kilometres (150 sq mi) and lies between the Estena and Bullaque rivers, extending into the Chorito and Miraflores mountain ranges.

The Campo de Calatrava Volcanic Field covers an area of 5,000 square kilometres (1,900 sq mi) and has more than three hundred individual structures.

The capital, Puertollano, and other locations are linked to this road by the A-43 and A-41, and the Autovía de los Viñedos motorway passes through the northeastern part of the province.

Air travel was enabled by the opening in 2008 of the Ciudad Real Central Airport, which started to have international flights in June 2010.