It is located to the northwest of the capital of the state of Oaxaca and it bordered to the north by Santa María Chilchotla and San José Tenango.

The orography corresponds to the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca, whose topographic relief is extremely broken and formed by hills of different altitudes.

The municipality lacks lakes, but has innumerable water eyes and streams, especially during the rainy season, as well as waterfalls of which the most important is "La Regadera" located on the road leading from Jim's Huautla.

The climate is generally considered as humid-temperate with rain most of the year, with the exception of a short hot and rainy season between the months of March and May; As of 2005 the average rainfall varied between 244 and 406 cm3 per year; in the evenings and occasionally throughout the day, the Municipality is covered by large mists, most likely due to that the Sierra Mazateca serving as a gateway to the great winds coming from the Gulf of Mexico causing cloudy formations and rainstorms.

[citation needed] Huautla de Jiménez is noted as the birthplace of María Sabina, a Mazatec curandera famous for her use of Psilocybe mushrooms.

People also visit the town to buy brightly colored hand-woven fabrics made by the native Mazatec women, and to consume the endemic entheogenic fungi, especially the Psilocybe mushrooms.