The area, located on the northern foothills of the Ligurian-Piedmontese Apennines and at the entrance of the Stura valley leading to the Turchino pass, is hilly, tending to mountainous heading south, with plains where agriculture is practiced and where the industries have established their factories near the main connections.

The fauna includes badgers, dormice, deer, wild boar, martens, squirrels, hares, partridges, foxes and weasels.

Being protected from the south by the south and south-west winds by the chain of the Apennines, the winters have moderate snowfalls: Ovada receives more snowfall than other Italian towns located at the same altitude since the territory of the low Alessandrino and generally in Lower Piedmont, is often home to major inversions that warm southerly winds fail to unseat.

The close proximity to the Ligurian Sea (less than 25 km), where cyclones often dig deep minimum of low pressure, combined with the orographic lift effect of the Apennines south of Ovada, mean that precipitation proves fairly abundant especially in the autumn months.

In the fall with the return of the Atlantic cyclones the weather is often overcast and rainy, and occasionally the fog appears, although much less than in other areas of Piedmont and the Po Valley.