It borders Eichwalde in the north, Schulzendorf and Schönefeld in the west, Wildau and Königs Wusterhausen in the south, as well as the Berlin borough of Treptow-Köpenick (Schmöckwitz locality) on the eastern shore of Zeuthener See, where the municipal area also includes the Miersdorfer Werder exclave.

Probably of Slavic origin like many Brandenburg settlements, Zeuthen with neighbouring Miersdorf and Gersdorf was first mentioned in the 1375 Landbuch (domesday book) written at the behest of the Luxembourg emperor Charles IV, who had acquired the margraviate from the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach two years before.

Devastated in the Thirty Years' War and with a population of only 122 still in 1860, the rapid development of the former village on the riverside to a coveted suburban residential area began with the building of the railway line to Görlitz shortly afterwards and the rise of Berlin as capital of the German Empire in 1871.

In World War II, the German Reichspostministerium research department under Wilhelm Ohnesorge had begun to build up a cyclotron particle accelerator and an isotope separator at Zeuthen, which from 1962 formed the nucleus of the East German Institute for High Energy Physics (IfH), part of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR.

On September 24, 2017 Sven Herzberger (no party affiliation) won the election for an eight-year term with 62.9% of the valid votes cast.