It is situated on the bank of Gjanica River in the Myzeqe Plain between the Seman in the north, the Vjosë in the south and the foothills of the Mallakastra Mountains in the southeast.

The presence of asphalt and burning escapes of natural gas in the vicinity was recorded as early as the 1st century AD.

[8] The first inhabitants of the city were the servants of Kahreman Pasha Vrioni and members of Aromanian families that had lived in the area since the early 19th century.

[8] Six kilometres away from Fier is situated Apollonia,[9] one of the two most important ancient Greek colonial settlements in present-day Albania.

It was founded in ~600 BC on a hill near the sea, and near what was then the course of Vjosë river by Ancient Greek settlers from Corfu and Corinth.

At the time before the changes in land formation and the Adriatic coastline caused by an earthquake in the 3rd century AD, the harbour af Apollonia could accommodate as many as 100 ships.

The economic prosperity of Apolonia grew on the basis of trade in slaves, and the local rich pastoral agricultural.

In 45 and 44 BC, Octavian, later to become the Emperor Augustus, studied for 6 months in Apollonia, which had established a high reputation as a center of Greek learning, especially the art of rhetoric.

Under the Empire, Apollonia remained a prosperous centre, but began to decline as the Vjosë silted up and the coastline changed after the earthquake.

[15] Fier is an important industrial city and is built by the Gjanica tributary of the Seman River, and is surrounded by marshland.

Although it was decommissioned in 2007, a joint Greek-Albanian venture was announced in 2023 to revitalize these thermal plants to diversify Albania’s electrical industry.

[16] Fier is a convenient place to stay to visit the major Classical sites at nearby Byllis and Apollonia.

[17] The city also plays an important economic role in the development of the county since it produces many goods such as sugar, bread and animal products.

Data shows that in 1918, after Albanian independence from the Ottoman Empire, Fier and its surrounding countryside on the Myzeqe Plain formed a majority Orthodox Christian enclave, in which Muslims constituted roughly 35% of the total population.