[5] The Kingdom encompasses 55 towns and gores, with a land area of 2,027 square miles (5,250 km2), about 21% of the state of Vermont.

The Northeast Kingdom has been listed in the North American and international editions of 1,000 Places to See Before You Die by Patricia Schultz.

[8] The largest municipalities in the Northeast Kingdom are the towns of St. Johnsbury (population 7,603), Lyndon (5,981), and Derby (4,621), and the city of Newport (4,589).

[9] Although Vermont is known as the Green Mountain State, the Northeast Kingdom lies outside that geological formation and is based on a set of long-ago volcanic islands, compressed during collision with the Taconic orogeny.

[10] The presence of kame terraces in the counties are of interest in connection with the glacial drift that gave the Northeast Kingdom its soil and its surface stones and boulders.

The resultant eruptions produced igneous rock which became the granite found in many of the region's mountains and in the Connecticut River Valley.

[13] The remaining geology was created during the Silurian–Devonian Period, about 400 million years ago, and left behind slate, with some granite, schist, and limestone.

[18] A saltwater incursion resulting in the Champlain Sea from the Atlantic Ocean covered much of Vermont, including what is now Lake Memphremagog.

The plant hardiness zone at Island Pond is 3b with an average annual extreme minimum air temperature of −31.8 °F (−35.4 °C).

[22] There are also black bear, deer, bobcat, coyote, fox, fisher, loon, wild turkey, and ruffed grouse.

[26] On December 30, 1933, the lowest recorded temperature in the New England states was registered as −50.8 °F (−46.0 °C), at Bloomfield in Essex County.

The retreating glacier allowed the northern migration of early humans around 9300 BCE, descendants of Asian immigrants during the Ice Age.

By 7300 BCE, people and a changing environment had eliminated large game from the area such as caribou and mastodons.

[33][34] European diseases, such as typhus, contracted from exposure to traders, killed many of the Cowasucks until only a few hundred were left in the Northeast Kingdom by 1600.

The Northeast Kingdom's popularity as a destination grew strongly from the moment that Governor George Aiken delivered a name for the region in 1949.

Vermont Public Radio reporter Charlotte Albright researched the naming process and wrote, "The novelist Howard Frank Mosher, who immortalizes the area in his fictional "Kingdom County," believes Aiken cooked up the phrase while fishing in Essex County."

[36] The local pharmacists who devised these "cures" gradually metamorphosed into today's pharmacies, and in the Northeast Kingdom they are still businesses where residents are often recognized and greeted by name.

[40] In 2015, the region featured half a dozen local radio stations, as well as regional versions of Vermont Public Radio (FM88.5 broadcast from Burke Mountain) and Montpelier's The Point; popular are Magic 97.7 FM broadcast from Lyndonville, VT, and MOO (WMOO) at 92.1FM from Derby Center, Vermont.

Recognizing the need for services on an intermediate level, state legislation created the Regional Planning Commissions (RPC), to aid the towns in land use issues, and Economic Development Commissions (EDC), tasked with fostering economic development in their jurisdictions.

This method of organization permits RPCs and EDCs to augment their state and federal funding with other sources of income.

This arrangement also allows the EDCs to own properties such as industrial parks and Business Incubator Facilities.

Various organizations are tasked with aiding public health including the Northeast Kingdom Human Services.

[43] In 2010 the largest dairy farmer in the state was in Orleans County with 5,000 head and 2,500 milkers, spread over five farms.

These include the Northern Community Investment Corporation, based in St. Johnsbury; Rural Edge,[52] formerly known as the Gilman Housing Trust;[53] the Lyndon Outing Club,[54] an all-volunteer-run ski hill providing affordable skiing to the community since 1937; and The Kingdom Trail Association, which builds and maintains the non-motorized recreational trail network in Burke.

[58] Rural Community Transportation runs out of Saint Johnsbury and serves Caledonia, Essex, Lamoille, and Orleans counties.

[63] Several of Archer Mayor's books in the Joe Gunther series based on a Vermont detective are set in the Northeast Kingdom.