It is located in the Loire-Atlantique department, in the Pays de la Loire region, western France.

It was created in January 2015, replacing the previous Communauté urbaine de Nantes.

[2] The metropolis is a member of the Nantes - Saint-Nazaire and Loire-Bretagne metropolitan clusters, as well as the Eurocities network, of which it chaired the Culture Forum in 2009.

[3] The Metropolitan Council consists of 97 members, one of them being the president, currently Johanna Rolland, the mayor of Nantes.

Communes further away from the center of the metropolitan area have formed their own intercommunal structures, such as: