With an area of 97.8 square kilometres (37.8 sq mi), it is situated about halfway between the cities of Stuttgart and Karlsruhe at the confluence of three rivers (Enz, Nagold and Würm).

The largest raid, and one of the most devastating area bombardments of World War II, was carried out by the Royal Air Force (RAF) on the evening of 23 February 1945.

Due to its location, this city is also called the "three-valleys town" (Drei-Täler Stadt) or the "Gateway to the Black Forest" (Pforte zum Schwarzwald / Porta Hercynia).

Pforzheim has the functions of a regional center (Mittelzentrum) for the towns and municipalities Birkenfeld (Enz), Eisingen, Engelsbrand, Friolzheim, Heimsheim, Ispringen, Kämpfelbach, Keltern, Kieselbronn, Königsbach-Stein, Mönsheim, Neuenbürg, Neuhausen, Neulingen, Niefern-Öschelbronn, Ölbronn-Dürrn, Remchingen, Straubenhardt, Tiefenbronn, Wiernsheim, Wimsheim and Wurmberg.

Due to this strategic location, Pforzheim later became a center for the timber-rafting trade, which transported timber from the Black Forest via the rivers Wuerm, Nagold, Enz and down the Neckar and Rhine to, among other markets, the Netherlands for use in shipbuilding.

A Roman milestone (the so-called 'Leugenstein') from the year 245 was excavated in modern times at present-day Friolzheim; it is marked with the exact distance to 'Portus' and is the first documented evidence of the settlement.

It is not known how many of Pforzheim's citizens died in that year, but there are reports of 500 deceased in the close by city of Calw and about 4000 in Stuttgart, which accounted for approximately one quarter to one half of the populations of those towns.

Outbreaks of the disease were reported for many places in southwestern Germany, Bohemia, the Alsace region in nowadays France, Switzerland, and Italy.

1556: After the conclusion of the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, Margrave Karl II introduced Lutheranism (Protestantism) as the state religion in the district Baden-Durlach, which included Pforzheim.

The French "sun king" Louis XIV's efforts to expand the territory of France up to the Upper Rhine river and to put the Elector Palatine under pressure to severe its ties with the League of Augsburg included the Brûlez le Palatinat!

These tactics seem to have been mainly the idea of the French war minister, François Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois.

In addition to this, the reconstruction of the town and the repairs of the fortifications under the supervision of Johann Matthaeus Faulhaber, the chief construction officer of the Margraviate Baden, required a lot of efforts.

In 1691, Louvois instructed his marshals to destroy those towns which were to serve as winter quarters for imperial troops, explicitly including Pforzheim, and then continue to Wuerttemberg for further destructions.

After the French troops had crossed the Rhine river under the command of Marshal Guy Aldonce de Durfort de Lorges at Philippsburg on 3 August 1691, they assaulted the Margraves' residential town of Durlach and 1,200 cavalry men, 300 dragoons and 1,200 infantry men advanced toward Pforzheim where they arrived in the morning on 9 August and surrounded the town.

From their base in Pforzheim, French army units obviously under the leadership of Marshal de Chamilly advanced along the river valleys of Nagold and Würm and looted and destroyed the villages and towns of Huchenfeld, Calw, Hirsau, Liebenzell and Zavelstein.

[15]: 81–116 1718: Inauguration of the "institution for orphans, the mad, the sick, for discipline and work" in a building of the former Dominican order Convent by the Enz river.

1836: Ferdinand Öchsle in Pforzheim invented a device for measuring the sugar content in freshly pressed grape juice for assessing the future quality of wine (Mostwaage).

The very first gasoline-powered automobile with an internal combustion engine of the inventor had hit the roads only two years earlier after a patent for this new technology had been granted to Karl Benz on 29 January 1886.

During the trip, Bertha Benz had to make repairs with a hairpin to open a blocked fuel line, and after returning home, suggested to her husband that another gear be provided in his automobile for climbing hills.

[17] From 1933: Along with the installation of the Nazi government in Germany the local subsidiaries of all political parties, groups and organizations other than the NSDAP were gradually disbanded in town.

[23] In early April, as the Allied forces and the French Army advanced toward Pforzheim, the local German military commander gave orders to destroy the electric power generating plant and those gas and water supply lines that were still working, but local residents succeeded in persuading the staff sergeant in charge of the operation to refrain from this action in the face of the imminent and seemingly inevitable surrender of the German military.

Only the Iron (Railway) Bridge in Weißenstein ward was saved by citizens who pulled off the fuse wiring from the explosive devices which had already been installed, and dropped it into Nagold river.

Across the town between Buechenbronn ward and the village of Wurmberg the storm caused severe damage to forest areas (i.e. most trees fell to the ground).

During the first night and the following days the soldiers of the French 3rd Husar Regiment and the US Army Unit, which were still stationed at the Buckenberg Barracks, helped clear the streets of a lot of fallen trees (especially in the Buckenberg/Haidach area).

On a Sunday, about 5000 citizens temporarily left their homes as a precaution while specialists defused and disposed of the latest of a large number of unexploded bombs found in Pforzheim's grounds since 1945.

[27] The technology used miniaturization with digital sensors and microprocessors driving independent motors and dial hands — to enable a range of specialized complications atypical to non-digital, analog watches[28] — an array of functions that would either be impossible or highly impractical in a mechanical movement.

The inclined bar can be traced back to the 13th century as the symbol of the lords (owners) of Pforzheim, which later on also became the National Coat of Arms of Baden, but its meaning is unknown.

Jewelry and watch-making industry is first set up by Jean François Autran after receiving an edict from then overlord Margrave Karl Friedrich von Baden.

In this respect the city benefits from its favorable Three-Valleys location at the gateway to the Black Forest, and related to this, from the starting points of a large number of hiking, cycling and waterway routes.

All regional trains, tram-trains and buses within Pforzheim and the surrounding Enzkreis are marketed under the brand of the Verkehrsverbund Pforzheim-Enzkreis (VPE), offering mutually integrated fares.