The town is situated at the confluence of the Trec with the Garonne on the right bank of the latter river, which is crossed at this point by a suspension bridge.

There is a second bridge to the west of Marmande which connects the D933 from the Toulouse/Bordeaux motorway (A62) to the new by-pass, opened in July 2009, which now leads to Bergerac and the département of the Dordogne.

Marmande was a bastide founded about 1195 on the site of a more ancient town by Richard Cœur de Lion, who granted it a liberal measure of self-government.

It soon passed into the hands of the counts of Toulouse, and was three times besieged and taken during the Albigensian Crusade, its capture by Amaury de Montfort in 1219 being followed by a massacre of the inhabitants.

A short occupation by the English in 1447, an unsuccessful siege by Henry IV in 1577 and its resistance of a month to a division of Wellington's army in 1814, are some important events in its subsequent history.