It borders the provincial capital of Zhengzhou to its southwest, Kaifeng to its southeast, Hebi and Anyang to its north, Jiaozuo to its west, and the provinces of Shanxi and Shandong to its northwest and east respectively.

Xinxiang was the site of the Battle of Muye,[14] where the Shang dynasty was overthrown by the armies of King Wu of Zhou.

[17] Xinxiang served as the capital of the short-lived Pingyuan Province, which administered the neighboring cities of Anyang, Hebi, Puyang, Jiaozuo and Heze between 1949 and 1952.

[18] In July 2021, Xinxiang was harshly impacted by the flooding in Henan, which affected about 470,000 people and over 55,000 hectares (140,000 acres) of cropland.

[19][20] During the period of Yao and Shun, China was divided into nine prefectures, and the city's territory belonged to Jizhou, Yanzhou and Yuzhou.

[34] The report found that Xinxiang has the 13th most polluted city air in China, with a PM2.5 concentration of 114.6 μg/m3 (over 11 times the safe limit established by the WHO) during the first quarter of 2015.

[35][citation needed][36] Swiss firm IQAir reported that Xinxiang suffered from an average PM2.5 concentration of 51.5 μg/m3 in 2020, ranking 31st in China,[37] and 89th in the world.

[38] In 2015, environmental non-governmental organization Airman (Chinese: 好空气保卫侠) purchased wheat samples farmed in the town of Wangcun, in Xinxiang, near a battery factory, and found it had cadmium levels up to 17 times the national safe limit.

[39] The following year, the group again purchased wheat samples in the towns of Dakuai [zh] and Wangcun,[40] and found cadmium levels up to 34.1 times the national safe limit.

[39][41][42] Following this report, the Xinxiang municipal government launched a program to purchase contaminated wheat, and convert the farmland to other purposes.

[39] In response, government officials from the town of Dakuai met with the group, and pledged to further investigate the samples and stop growing wheat on contaminated farmland.

[43] Xinjiang Roman Catholics are served by the Apostolic Prefecture of Xinxiang (Latin: Sinsiang / Sinsiangen(sis)), which was established on July 7, 1936, on missionary territory split off from the then Apostolic Vicariate of Weihuifu (simplified Chinese: 卫辉府; traditional Chinese: 衛輝府) (now Diocese of Jixian).

It is a pre-diocesan jurisdiction, which is exempt (i.e., directly subject to the Holy See and its missionary Roman Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples), and not part of any ecclesiastical province.