It consists of a vast and complex area of mostly relatively high and rugged mountain chains and massifs located in the central region of the Iberian Peninsula, but reaching almost the Mediterranean coast in the Valencian Community in the east.

It is composed of a haphazard and motley series of mountain ranges, massifs, plateaus and depressions without a definite common petrologic composition and overall structure.

In some cases, many of the inhabitants are not natives anymore but immigrants from Romania or the Maghreb working as contract laborers in agricultural activities.

Other causes of high emigration have been the abandonment by the local youth of traditional agricultural practices that were the mainstay of the village economy, such as sheep and goat rearing, as well as the lifestyle changes that swept over rural Spain during the second half of the 20th century.

Among the mammals, the Spanish ibex, roe deer, wild boar, European badgers, common genets, among others, have their habitat in many of these desolate mountain ranges.

Aquatic invertebrates, including the Austropotamobius pallipes crayfish, and certain fishes, such as Salaria fluviatilis and Cobitis paludica are common in the upper course of the Sistema Ibérico rivers.

Other locally important summits are Cerro Calderón (1,837 m), Mont Caro (1,441 m), Tossal d'Orenga (1,144 m) and Montegordo (837 m), The Sistema Ibérico is not as high as other mountain systems in Spain.

It is, however, very significant from the hydrographic point of view for important rivers of the Iberian Peninsula have their source in its mountains, which divide the Atlantic from the Mediterranean watershed.