Beskid Mountains cover most of the southern part of the voivodeship, with the highest peak of Pilsko on the Polish-Slovakian border reaching 1534 meters above sea level.

Silesian Upland dominates the central part of the region, while the hilly, limestone Polish Jura closes it from the northeast.

[6] Despite the voivodeship's name, only the western half of its area is the considered to be a part of the historical region of Silesia.

Silesian Voivodeship was first created in 1920 when the newly independent Polish state established an autonomous region for all historical lands of Upper Silesia that were to end up in Poland.

At the time, Upper Silesia was under international control and a plebiscite was to be held in 1921 to divide the region between Germany and Poland in accordance with local results.

Nazi Germany annexed most of the current voivodeship's area directly into the German province of Silesia (Gau Schlesien) with capital in Wrocław (Breslau) as the governmental district of Katowice (Regierungsbezirk Kattowitz).

Northern parts of what is Silesian Voivodeship today, with Częstochowa, found themselves in the General Government area.

The new region's borders included, for the first time, Częstochowa area, and roughly resembled the contemporary Silesian Voivodeship.

It is also bordered by four other Polish voivodeships: those of Opole (to the west), Łódź (to the north), Świętokrzyskie (to the north-east), and Lesser Poland (to the east).

According to the Polish Statistics Office, the region's population was 4.32 million at the end of 2023,[8] a decrease of 6% from 10 years earlier.

Similarly to Poland as a whole, the Silesian voivodeship has been suffering from extremely low fertility and intensifying natural population decrease.

[11] Population density is particularly high in the central part of the region where the polycentric Katowice urban area is located.

[15] In the 2021 census, 71.39% of residents declared they have belonged to a religion, of which Roman Catholicism was the largest denomination with 3.063 million adherents (69.57% of total).

The region is divided into five ecclesial provinces: Jasna Góra in Częstochowa, located in the northern part of the voivodeship, is the most-visited shrine in Poland and features the Black Madonna icon.

Wisła and Goleszów are the only municipalities in Poland where Lutheranism is the plurality religion, at 46.7% and 37.47% of the total population, respectively.

The best-preserved palaces include those at Brynek, Kłobuck, Koniecpol, Kończyce Wielkie, Pławniowice, Sosnowiec and Złoty Potok.

Often visited is the Black Madonna's Jasna Góra Sanctuary in Częstochowa – the annual destination of over 4 million pilgrims from all over the world.

These include narrow and standard gauge railways, coal and silver mines, and shafts and their equipment from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Most of the mining is derived from one of the world's largest bituminous coalfields of the Upper Silesian Industrial District (Górnośląski Okręg Przemysłowy) and the Rybnik Coal District (Rybnicki Okręg Węglowy) with its major cities Rybnik, Jastrzębie-Zdrój, Żory and Wodzisław Śląski.

Lead and zinc can be found near Bytom, Zawiercie and Tarnowskie Góry; iron ore and raw materials for building – near Częstochowa.

It is also the crossing point for many international routes like E40 connecting Calais, Brussels, Cologne, Dresden, Wrocław, Kraków and Kyiv and E75 from Scandinavia to the Balkans.

A relatively short distance to Vienna facilitates cross-border co-operation and may positively influence the process of European integration.

Large part of the Upper Silesia conurbation features the Silesian Interurbans, the longest tram network in Poland, and one of the largest in the world.

The biggest universities[20] (for day 30.11.2016 r.) are: The Silesian voivodeship's government is headed by the province's voivode (governor) who is appointed by the Polish Prime Minister.

The current voivode of Silesia is Jarosław Wieczorek, whilst the present marshal is Wojciech Saługa.