It included the urban centers of Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), Inowrocław (Inowraclaw), Piła (Schneidemühl) and Wałcz (Deutsch Krone) and was given its name for the Noteć River (German: Netze) that traversed it.

On the other hand, the adjacent annexed areas of the Greater Polish Poznań and Gniezno Voivodeships, as well as of the Kuyavian lands of western Inowrocław Voivodeship along the Noteć (Netze) formed the separate Netze District under governor Franz Balthasar Schönberg von Brenkenhoff.

Von Brenkenhoff however soon was accused of the waste of public funds in the course of the construction of the Bydgoszcz Canal, and from 1775 onwards the Netze District was administered with West Prussia.

After the Prussian defeat in the War of the Fourth Coalition and the Greater Poland Uprising, large parts of the southern Netze District according to the 1807 Treaties of Tilsit fell to the Bydgoszcz Department of the Duchy of Warsaw.

At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the demarcation line was confirmed as the northern border of the newly established Grand Duchy of Posen.