The park consists of approximately 27,000 acres (110 km2) within the Mojave Sector of the Tehachapi District of the California State Park System, and is located along State Highway 14 in Kern County, about 80 miles (129 km) east of Bakersfield and 25 miles (40 km) north of Mojave, where the southernmost tip of the Sierra Nevada converges with the El Paso Mountains.

Each tributary canyon is unique, with vivid colors due to alternate layers of white clay and red sandstone, further accented by pink volcanic rocks and brown lava formations.

Three overlapping desert ecosystems provide for the wildlife that includes eagles, falcons, roadrunners, hawks, coyotes, kit foxes, bobcats, lizards, mice and squirrels.

Some petroglyphs and pictographs are found in the El Paso Mountains and represent ritual sites from ancestors of the Coso people were early indigenous inhabitants of this locale.

Providing several unique, dramatic areas, and close to Los Angeles, since the 1930s Hollywood has frequently filmed at Red Rock Canyon, including motion pictures, television series, advertisements, and music videos.

Among the many westerns filmed there were The Big Country, Man of the West, and The Outlaw, and such diverse movies as Mesa of Lost Women, Radar Men from the Moon, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Buck Rogers (serial), Capricorn One, The Mummy, Zorro Rides Again, Jurassic Park, I'll Be Home for Christmas, Missile to the Moon, The Car, Westworld, Savages, and TV series Airwolf, Galactica 1980, Lost in Space and The Twilight Zone .

[4][5] The dry climate, frequently cloudless skies, and relatively low light pollution enhance nighttime viewing conditions.

[4] On a clear night with no moon, visitors with good eyesight and dark adapted vision may see both the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies with the unaided eye, and the central Milky Way shows complex structure from this site.