The district was named after the region known as Bergisches Land, which belonged to the County of Berg for most of the medieval era.

By 1740, descriptions of the area distinguished between Niederbergisch, which was north of the river Wupper, and Oberbergisch to its south.

The Oberbergischer Kreis covers the hills west of the Sauerland and north of the Westerwald.

The prevailing rock is greywacke, which was and in places still is mined in large stone quarries.

Robert Ley, a Nazi politician who helped organize the recruitment of slave labor during World War II, and published an anti-Semitic newspaper, the Westdeutscher Beobachter, was born in Niederbreidenbach,[2] a town in Oberbergischer Kreis.