The Pays de Bitche has a total of 47 municipalities and covers the part of the Northern Vosges Regional Nature Park that lies within Lorraine.

To the south it borders the so-called Alsace bossue (German: Krumme Elsass), which belongs to the arrondissement of Saverne.

The highest point, at 510 metres above sea level - is not far from it at Garnfirst near Philippsbourg right on the boundary with the canton of Niederbronn-les-Bains.

In 1333, the House of Zweibrücken-Bitsch was established when Eberhard and his brother, Walram II, agreed on a division of the County of Zweibrücken into two fairly homogeneous areas.

This may be considered as the birth of the Pays de Bitche as a historical region, albeit at that time it encompassed a larger area that today has become the Saarland municipalities of Gersheim and Blieskastel and the collective municipality of Pirmasens-Land in the Zweibrücken Hills that belongs to the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

At the beginning of the 16th century the Peasants' War broke out in the area around Bitche, Hans Zoller from the village of Rimling being the regional ringleader of the movement.

When he refused to appear, the southern part of the Pays de Bitche – the area of the three present cantons and a few municipalities in present-day Saarland – were occupied by Lorraine and returned to the Catholic faith.

Philip, who could not match the military might of Lorraine, then took legal action, taking his case to the Imperial Chamber Court.

Its administration was modernised, its jurisdiction re-regulated and there was then initially a definite economic boom that had, however, turned into a long-lasting recession in the 2nd quarter of the 17th century.