The piece depicts a scene of red-roofed buildings and a mostly blue partly cloudy sky, with the air filled by dozens of nearly identical men dressed in dark overcoats and bowler hats, generally facing the viewer.

Charly Herscovici, who was bequeathed copyright on the artist's works, commented on Golconda: Magritte was fascinated by the seductiveness of images.

[citation needed] As was often the case with Magritte's works, the title Golconda was found by his poet friend Louis Scutenaire.

Golconda is a ruined city in the state of Telangana, India, near Hyderabad, which from the mid-14th century until the end of the 17th was the capital of two successive kingdoms; the fame it acquired through being the center of the region's legendary diamond industry was such that its name remains, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, "a synonym for 'mine of wealth'."

Magritte included a likeness of Scutenaire in the painting – his face is used for the large man by the chimney of the house on the right of the picture.