South Prussia bordered on the Brandenburgian Neumark region in the west and the Prussian Netze District in the north.

In the southeast the Pilica river marked the border with those Lesser Polish territories that in 1795 became part of Austrian New Galicia.

The first provincial minister Otto von Voss said that “South Prussia shall not have been bought at too high a price: it should be no burden to other provinces, it should even benefit them and the Prussian state”[1] Thus, while engaging in Germanisation of Poles during the Partitions, the Prussian state extracted more revenue than what it spent from the province and levied duties on goods from the province, which seriously discouraged its industrial development.

[2] Following Napoleon Bonaparte's victory in the War of the Fourth Coalition and a Polish uprising, the territory of South Prussia became part of the Duchy of Warsaw, a French client state, according to the 1807 Treaties of Tilsit.

In 1806, South Prussia consisted of three departments (Kriegs- und Domänen-Kammern) divided into the following districts or counties (Kreise):