It is named after its largest settlement, Walsall, but covers a larger area which also includes Aldridge, Bloxwich, Brownhills, Darlaston, Pelsall and Willenhall.

Prior to 1966, the area that would later become the metropolitan borough of Walsall was governed by five smaller local authorities: The four urban districts were all within the administrative county of Staffordshire, in a two-tier structure with Staffordshire County Council providing county-level services.

[8] A review of local government in the West Midlands area was carried out under the Local Government Act 1958, culminating in the West Midlands Review Order 1965, which merged many of the districts in the area with effect from 1 April 1966.

[11] For the next twelve years there was a two-tier structure in place, with West Midlands County Council providing higher county-level services.

Two, Walsall and Bloxwich and Aldridge-Brownhills fall wholly within the borough and are represented by Valerie Vaz (Labour) and Wendy Morton (Conservative) respectively.

[16] At the time of the United Kingdom Census 2001, according to the Office for National Statistics, the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall had a total resident population of 253,499, of which 123,189 (48.6%) were male and 130,310 (51.4%) were female,[18] with 101,333 households.

[18] Its population density was 22.79 people per hectare compared with an average of 28.41 across the West Midlands metropolitan county.

[18] The median age of the population was 37, compared with 36 within the West Midlands metropolitan county and 37 across England and Wales.

[21] Data on religious beliefs across the borough in the 2001 census show that 72.1% declared themselves to be Christian, 10.0% said they held no religion, and 5.4% reported themselves as Muslim.

2.3% of these people were students with jobs, 6.0% looking after home or family, 6.8% permanently sick or disabled and 2.4% economically inactive for other reasons.

The central and northern areas of the borough (including the towns of Walsall, Bloxwich and Brownhills) are within the Walsall and Cannock TTWA, whilst the majority of the area west of the M6 motorway (including the towns of Willenhall and Darlaston) is within the Wolverhampton TTWA.

However, this system was discontinued and replaced with the traditional age ranges in September 1986 to fit in with the other schools in the Walsall borough.