It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to the west.

Salisbury Plain is noted for the Stonehenge and Avebury stone circles, which together are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and other ancient landmarks.

Large country houses open to the public include Longleat, where there is also a safari park, and the National Trust's Stourhead.

The Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age people that occupied southern Britain built settlements on the hills and downland that cover Wiltshire.

In the 6th and 7th centuries Wiltshire was at the western edge of Saxon Britain, as Cranborne Chase and the Somerset Levels prevented the advance to the west.

The Battle of Bedwyn was fought in 675 between Escuin, a West Saxon nobleman who had seized the throne of Queen Saxburga, and King Wulfhere of Mercia.

At the time of the Domesday Survey, the industry of Wiltshire was largely agricultural; 390 mills are mentioned, and vineyards at Tollard and Lacock.

[5] Around 1800, the Kennet and Avon Canal was built through Wiltshire, providing a route for transporting cargoes from Bristol to London until the development of the Great Western Railway.

This originated from a story of smugglers who managed to foil the local Excise men by hiding their alcohol, possibly French brandy in barrels or kegs, in a village pond.

The largest area of chalk in Wiltshire is Salisbury Plain, which is used mainly for arable agriculture and by the British Army as training ranges.

The highest point in the county is the Tan Hill–Milk Hill ridge in the Pewsey Vale, just to the north of Salisbury Plain, at 295 m (968 ft) above sea level.

[9] The chalk uplands run north-east into West Berkshire in the Marlborough Downs ridge, and south-west into Dorset as Cranborne Chase.

In the north-west of the county, on the border with South Gloucestershire and Bath and North East Somerset, the underlying rock is the resistant oolite limestone of the Cotswolds.

It reaches as far as the outskirts of Rudloe/Corsham and Trowbridge, preventing urban sprawl particularly from the latter in the direction of Bradford-on-Avon, and affording further protection to surrounding villages and towns from Bath in Somerset.

Along with the rest of South West England, Wiltshire has a temperate climate which is generally wetter and milder than counties further east.

In the summer the Azores high pressure affects south-west England; however, convective cloud sometimes forms inland, reducing the number of hours of sunshine.

In summer, a greater proportion of the rainfall is caused by sun heating the ground leading to convection and to showers and thunderstorms.

In autumn and winter, however, the sea is often relatively warm, compared with the air passing over it and can often lead to a higher rainfall in the south of the county (e.g. Salisbury recorded over 200mm of rain in Nov 2009 and January 2014).

[10] This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added (GVA) of Wiltshire at current basic prices[11] with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.

Wiltshire's employment structure is distinctive in having a significantly higher number of people in various forms of manufacturing (especially electrical equipment and apparatus, food products, and beverages, furniture, rubber, pharmaceuticals, and plastic goods) than the national average.

In addition, there is higher-than-average employment in public administration and defence, due to the military establishments around the county, particularly around Amesbury and Corsham.

Wiltshire is also distinctive for the high proportion of its working-age population who are economically active (86.6% in 1999–2000) and its low unemployment rates.

The gross domestic product (GDP) level in Wiltshire did not reach the UK average in 1998, and was only marginally above the rate for South West England.

As a result of elections held in 2021, Wiltshire Council comprises 61 Conservatives, 27 Liberal Democrats, seven Independents and three Labour members.

[24] It depicts in the centre a golden great bustard, which had been extinct in England since 1832 but is now the subject of a breeding programme on Salisbury Plain.

The field consists of alternating green and white stripes, which reference the banner of arms of the council but also represent the chalk and grass of the county's downlands.

National Cycle Route 4 and the Thames Path, a modern long distance footpath, run through the county.