The city is situated on the slopes of Little Carpathians mountains and surrounded by typical terraced vineyards with more than 700 years of winemaking tradition.

Cadastrially, Svätý Jur includes also the natural reserve Šúr, established in 1952 to protect one of the last and largest remnants of a tall-stem swamp alder forest in Central Europe.

The city is bordered by the Little Carpathian mountains to the west, Bratislava to the south, natural reserve Šúr to the east and Limbach and Pezinok to the north and northeast respectively.

The city name translates literally as Saint George, Jur being the archaic form of Juraj in the Slovak.

Defensive city walls were constructed between 1603 and 1664, but Svätý Jur was devastated by the Ottoman Turks in their invasion of 1663.

The Ottoman troops also destroyed the White Castle (Slovak: Biely Kameň), which had been an important administrative center of the region until then.

To encourage migration, it allowed the Germans to keep their language and religion in order to develop farmland for cultivation and produce.

Other places of interest include a Renaissance manor house, a Baroque church of Trinity, a Piarist monastery from 1720, a late 18th century synagogue and the ruins of the city walls.