Neighboring districts are (from west clockwise) Südliche Weinstraße, Rhein-Pfalz-Kreis, the district Karlsruhe as well as the district-free city of Karlsruhe, and the French département Bas-Rhin.

The Palatinate was destroyed in the Napoleonic Wars, and the clerical states of Germany were dissolved in 1803.

After a period of French occupation the Congress of Vienna decided to hand the territories over to Bavaria.

The region remained a part of Bavaria until World War II; afterwards it was incorporated into the newly established state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

The landscape of the district consists of the Rhine valley, in the north and east meeting the jungle-like areas of old Rhine arms, in the south covering the Bienwald, a forest stretching into the north of Alsace.