Industries include turkey and chicken hatching and processing, corn, tobacco, automotive, and pharmaceutical.

The township also contains the smaller communities of Cairngorm, Campbellvale, Caradoc, Christina, Falconbridge, Glen Oak, Longwood, Melbourne (part) and Muncey.

The community is situated next to Highway 402 between London and the border to Port Huron, Michigan, U.S. at Sarnia, Ontario.

Strathroy's economy is diverse, and major industries include automotive manufacturing, agriculture and food processing.

The soil composition of the region is largely sandy (a phenomenon referred to locally as the "Caradoc Sand Plains") as a result of deposits created on the bottom of the glacial Lake Whittlesey which covered the area approximately 13,000 years ago.

This crossing happened to be at the point of greatest elevation on this division, the railroad having just climbed out of the valley of the Thames River from London.

The station was named for Charles John Brydges, the managing director of the Grand Trunk Railway from 1861 to 1874.

[4] Strathroy was first colonized in 1832 by John Stewart Buchanan, accompanied by the explorer Sir Michael Jacques, at a location on the Sydenham River with flow and fall sufficient to power a gristmill.

[5] Sir Arthur Currie, who would later become the commander of Canadian forces in Europe during World War I, was born here on December 5, 1875.

In the fall of 1876, Bixel Brewery opened in Strathroy, producing lager beer for a century before its closing.

To commemorate the occasion, the NHL's Montreal Canadiens played an exhibition game at the arena, defeating the local Junior 'B' team the Strathroy Rockets 14–3 in front of 3,100 spectators.

On August 10, 2016, an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant supporter from Strathroy, Aaron Driver, was killed in a taxi outside his home, after being shot by Royal Canadian Mounted Police and detonating one of two homemade bombs.

[22] Strathroy has two weekly newspapers, The Age Dispatch and the Middlesex Banner, and a radio station, 105.7 myFM (CJMI-FM), which provides local news and sports coverage.