In its traditional sense, the term Upper Harz covers the area of the seven historical mining towns (Bergstädte) - Clausthal, Zellerfeld, Andreasberg, Altenau, Lautenthal, Wildemann and Grund - in the present-day German federal state of Lower Saxony.

[1] Orographically, it comprises the Harz catchment areas of the Söse, Innerste and Grane, Oker and Abzucht mountain streams, all part of the larger Weser watershed.

In a wider sense, it also comprises the adjacent High Harz (Hochharz) range in the east, climbing to over 1,100 m (3,600 ft) in the Brocken massif.

From the Clausthal Kulmfaltenzone, it extends to the western and northern rim of the Harz and is bordered in the southeast by the Acker-Bruchberg ridge beyond the Söse valley.

The Upper Harz was, for centuries, dominated by the hugely profitable silver mining industry and is also distinguished by its own dialect (see below).

The part of the mountain range lying west of the Brocken described in a geographical sense as the Upper Harz is divided from a miner's and ironworker's perspective into the Upper Harz (Oberharz), i.e. the plateau of Clausthal, with this town and Zellerfeld and the mining towns of Altenau, Lautenthal, Wildemann, Grund and Andreasberg, and the communion of the Lower Harz, i.e. the Rammelsberg near Goslar and the ironworks that process its ore, and which lie on the northern foothills of the mountains near Ocker, Langelsheim etc.