A landlocked county, it is bordered by Staffordshire to the north and west, Worcestershire to the south, and is almost surrounded by Warwickshire to the east.

Nearly all of the county's settlements belong to the West Midlands and Coventry built-up areas, though the 'Meriden Gap' between them is rural.

For local government purposes West Midlands comprises seven metropolitan boroughs: Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall, and Wolverhampton.

The west of the county encloses the valley of the River Tame and its tributaries; the highest point of the surrounding area is Turners Hill, at 271 metres (889 ft).

A new administrative body for the county (and some of the district surrounding it as Non-Constituent members), the West Midlands Combined Authority, was created in June 2016.

Since May 2017, the authority has been headed by a directly elected Mayor of the West Midlands, a position currently held by Richard Parker of the Labour and Co-operative Parties.

Although the modern county has only existed since 1974, the settlements of the West Midlands have long been important centres of commerce and industry as well as developing a good local infrastructure.

Coventry was one of England's most important cities during the Middle Ages, with its prosperity built upon wool and cloth manufacture.

The coal and iron ore deposits of the Black Country area provided a ready source of raw materials.

The new area consisted of seven new metropolitan boroughs, with Aldridge-Brownhills added to Walsall; Halesowen and Stourbridge to Dudley and Sutton Coldfield to Birmingham.

Solihull took in much of the suburban fringe to the east of Birmingham, including the former villages of Chelmsley Wood and Castle Bromwich, also Birmingham Airport, and the area of countryside between Solihull and Coventry, whilst Coventry itself received only small changes and Wolverhampton was unaltered.

This led to (apart from in the east, with Coventry and the Meriden Gap) quite a tightly defined metropolitan border, excluding such places as Burntwood, Bromsgrove, Cannock, Kidderminster, Lichfield and Wombourne which had been considered for inclusion in the West Midlands metropolitan area by the Redcliffe-Maud Report.

The 1974 reform created the West Midlands County Council that covered the entire area and dealt with strategic issues.

West Midlands was also established as a new ceremonial county, with the offices of Lord Lieutenant and High Sheriff created.

In 1994, the western/southern shores of Chasewater, plus the adjacent Jeffreys Swag, were transferred from the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall to the District of Lichfield, Staffordshire.

A smaller piece of green belt between Birmingham, Walsall and West Bromwich includes Barr Beacon and the Sandwell Valley.

Barr Beacon is another hill in the West Midlands, located on the border of Birmingham and Walsall, with a height of 227 metres (745 ft).

[19] The Forensic Science Service, Linpac, Lafarge Cement UK and IMI plc are on the Birmingham Business Park in Bickenhill.

ZF Lemförder UK's site at Bickenhill makes axle modules for Land Rover.

TRW Conekt have a main automotive engineering research centre at The Green Business Park in Shirley Heath.

Turner Powertrain Systems is the world market leader for transmissions for backhoe loaders, mini excavators telescopic handlers, and site dumpers is further south, near Dunstall Hill.

Many local authorities still have sixth form facilities in secondary schools, though sixth form facilities had been axed by most secondary schools in Dudley since the early 1990s (and in Halesowen in 1982) as the local authorities changed direction towards further education colleges.

All secondary state education in Dudley and Sandwell is mixed comprehensive, although there are a small number of single sex and grammar schools existing in parts of Birmingham, Solihull, Wolverhampton and Walsall.