It lies in the Alta Ribagorça county in the Alt Pirineu region, on the edges of the Pyrenees.

The valley also includes the highest ski resort in the Pyrenees, at Boí-Taüll, and borders the Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici National Park which lies to the northeast.

The first Christian counties in the region were set out in the 9th century, in which the local counts paid little heed to their nominal Frankish overlords.

Although the valley had a relatively low population in the Middle Ages, large quantities of silver enriched the local dignitaries to encourage them to join the Catalan campaign to recover Barbastro and Zaragoza.

Much of the wealth was spent on the construction of many churches from the 11th to the 14th centuries, in the new architectural style imported from Lombardy.

Wall paintings from the churches are conserved at the National Museum of Art of Catalonia in Barcelona.

The church of Sant Climent de Taüll was consecrated on 10 December 1123 by the bishop of Roda.

To the southeast of the body of the church stands a six-storey bell tower, with arched windows on each floor.

The village lies at a strategic point where the valley widens out and was connected with a nearby abbey in the Middle Ages which has now disappeared.

The church has a single surviving nave of the three originally built, with a barrel vault and a semicircular apse.

The church of Santa Eulàlia in Erill-la-Vall has a single long nave with a triple apse at the eastern end and an entrance to the north opening onto a covered walkway.

A side-chapel to the north and a later Gothic bell-tower with two storeys to the south create a cruciform floor plan.

Two square chapels have been built into the northern wall, and the bell tower rises from the northeast corner to five storeys.

The small hermitage of Sant Quirc is situated on a rocky outcrop close to Durro.