Murcia is a sea-side province, in South East Spain. On the East is bounded by Alicante (Costa Blanca), West by Almería and Granada, North by Albacete, and South by the Mediterranean and a salt lake called Mar Menor.

Its area is 4,453 square miles, with about 75 miles of coast from from Cape Palos westwards to Villaricos Point (where Almería begins). It is fringed by hills reaching their greatest elevation immediately east of Cartagena; northwards from Cape Palos to the Alicante boundary a low sandy tongue encloses the shallow lagoon called Mar Menor.

Eastward from the Mar Menor and northward from Cartagena stretches the plain known as El Campo de Cartagena, but the surface of the rest of the province is diversified by ranges of hills, belonging to the same system as the Sierra Nevada, which connect the mountains of Almería and Granada with those of Alicante. The general direction of these ranges is from south-west to north-east; they reach their highest point (5150 ft.) on the Sierra de Espuña, between the Mula and Sangonera valleys.

Mineral springs occur at Mula, Archena (hot sulphur), and Alhama (hot chalybeate). The greater part of the province drains into the Mediterranean, chiefly by the Segura, which enters it in the north-west below Hellin in Albacete, and leaves it a little above Orihuela in Alicante.

The climate is hot and dry, and agriculture is largely dependent on irrigation, which, where practicable, has been carried on since the time of the Moors.