The department makes up of most of Lower Limousin and owes its name to the Corrèze river whose entire course flows through the centre, and passes through the two main cities, Tulle and Brive-la-Gaillarde.

Located west of the Massif Central, it consists of three zones: the Mountains (Montagne), the plateaus and the Brive Basin.

The railways arrived in 1860, at an opportune moment, directly after phylloxera had destroyed the local wine industry.

The new railways enabled the farms in the area surrounding Brive to specialise in fruits and vegetables which they could now transport rapidly to the larger population centres of central and southern France.

The 1851 census recorded a population of 320,866: this remained relatively constant for the rest of the nineteenth century.

During the twentieth century, however, Corrèze shared the experience of many of the country's rural departments as the population fell steadily.