The council covers an area adjacent to Hadera in the north, to Netanya in the south, to the Mediterranean in the west and to Tulkarm and the Green Line in the east.

The region of Hefer Valley (Emek Hefer) covers an area known to its former Arab Palestinian inhabitants as Wadi al-Hawarith[2] In the early 1900s, a local midwife, Olga Hankin, reported information about the economic state of the families in the region to her husband, Yehoshua Hankin, who was in charge of land purchase for the Jewish National Fund (JNF).

The chairman of the JNF, Menachem Ussishkin, set out on a fundraising trip to Canada, returning with $300,000 and undertakings to bring it up to a million, the sum required to purchase the Hefer Valley over a period of seven years.

In 1931, a group from the Hashomer Hatzair movement in Hadera established the settlement of Ein HaHoresh, planting the first citrus grove.

Another group from the Kibbutz HaMeuhad movement, founded Givat Haim in 1932, while the organization of demobilized soldiers from the Jewish Brigade set up the settlement of Avihayil.