The district also includes the towns of Baldock and Royston and numerous villages and surrounding rural areas.

Part of the district lies within the Chiltern Hills, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The neighbouring districts are East Hertfordshire, Stevenage, Welwyn Hatfield, St Albans, Luton, Central Bedfordshire, South Cambridgeshire and Uttlesford.

[15][16] When the council was created in 1974, it inherited five sets of offices from the five former authorities, spread across the four towns of Hitchin, Letchworth, Baldock and Royston.

[20] In addition, the three towns of Baldock, Hitchin, and Letchworth are unparished areas, as no successor parishes were created for those three former urban districts on their abolition in 1974.

Prior to this, the council had used a logo of the initials "NHDC" in a green and purple square for approximately thirty years.