The city lies in historic Lesser Poland near the confluence of the Vistula and the San rivers, and covers an area of 82.5 km2 (31.9 sq mi).

The city was designed to be a settlement for workers of Huta Stalowa Wola (known in 1938 to 1939 as Zakłady Poludniowe or Southern Works), a plant built as part of the Central Industrial Region.

The name of the town, Stalowa Wola, can be roughly translated into English as “steel will” and comes from a statement made by General Tadeusz Kasprzycki, Minister of Military Affairs of Poland in the late 1930s in which he declared that the new Polish industrial development plan of the Central Industrial Area symbolizes the steel will of the Polish nation to modernize itself.

The city of Stalowa Wola was built on the site where the village of Pławo once stood, between the ancient towns of Nisko and Rozwadów.

In early 1937, the government of the Second Polish Republic accepted the project of the Central Industrial Area, which included the construction of a brand new steel mill, together with a settlement for the workers.

Following the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, the city was occupied by Nazi Germany.

He saved an estimated 8,000 Polish Jews from certain death in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust, performing his services in utmost secrecy under the threat of capital punishment.

Based on the military profile of design, production and sales, Huta Stalowa Wola S.A. offers armament equipment.

The Stalowa Wola Power Plant, part of the Tauron Group, also plays a leading role in the city's economic life.

Entrepreneurs operating on the basis of permits issued by the Industrial Development Agency S.A. have incurred investment outlays here in the amount of PLN 1.71 billion, with total employment reaching almost 6,000 employees.

On 31.07.2021 an agreement was signed on the establishment of the company "Euro-Park Stalowa Wola" to manage the newly created investment zone.

The first major investment is a plant for the production of copper foil for the automotive industry, the investor is Korean technology giant SK Nexilis.

Polish State Railways (PKP) provides scheduled connections to Lublin, Warsaw, Kraków, Katowice, Wrocław, Rzeszów, Przemyśl and Odesa (in Ukraine).

The ZMKS is the city's main public transit agency, operating a fleet of buses in Stalowa Wola and the surrounding districts.