It is bounded by (from the south and clockwise) the districts of Fürth, Neustadt (Aisch)-Bad Windsheim, Bamberg, Forchheim and Nürnberger Land, and by the cities of Nuremberg and Erlangen.

The city of Erlangen is not part of the district, but nonetheless its administrative seat.

The earliest extant documents are drawings from 1413 which show water wheels along the Regnitz.

Lands west of the river are covered with several hundred tiny lakes on both sides of the Aisch.

East of the river the country is rising to the hills of the northern Frankish Alb.