Fulford is located 2 miles (3 km) to the south of the city, on the east bank of the River Ouse.

St Oswald's Hall, the former church, was built about 1150, on a site near the Ouse, west of the current village centre.

Population at the time was 182, with occupations including two farmers, two blacksmiths, two wheelwrights, two shoemakers, a butcher, a tailor, a shopkeeper, a coal dealer, a corn miller, and the landlords of The Light Horseman, The Saddle, The Board, The Plough, and The Bay Horse public houses.

The parish is much reduced in size, having once extended north up the A19 past Fulford Barracks as far as Heslington Road and including York Cemetery.

A pedestrian Millennium Bridge with a cycle path was opened in 2001, linking Fulford to the South Bank area of York on the other side of the river.

Fulford Golf Club, which celebrated its centenary in 2006, was home to the Benson and Hedges International Open between 1971 and 1989.

A 6.4 miles (10.3 km) long scale model of the Solar System starts across the Ouse, west of Fulford, and runs via Naburn to Riccall along a disused railway line from York to Selby, now a Sustrans cycle path and part of the White Rose cycle route.

[15] Besides having the Minster Way and the Wilberforce Way,[16] the route of The White Rose Way, a long-distance walk from Leeds to Scarborough also passes through Fulford.