Gwangju is located southeast of Seoul and at the heart of Gyeonggi Province. Its size is 430.96 ㎢, and it borders Yeoju-gun and Icheon to the east, Seongnam to the west, Yongin to the south, and Namyangju, Yangpyeong-gun, and Hanam to the north, across Han River.

It is under the influence of Gwangju Mountain Range, one of the many mountain ranges running west from Taebaek Mountain Range and forming a valley. Gwangju Mountain Range around Mt. Namhan has many basins with many ups and downs; only small parts of it are flat lands and 22% of it is cultivated. Also, the mountain terrains are severely sloped, and in the development of topographies, weathering and erosion are active and sedimentation is relatively limited along the river.

The cultivated lands are mostly fields on the mountains. As it is adjacent to Seoul, many vegetables are cultivated on it as specialty crops, including tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, chicory, and mushrooms, and rice farming is mostly done in the plains to the west of the Han and Gyeongancheon rivers.

Gwangju has a high temperature and high humidity in summer and is cold and dry with a dramatic temperature difference in winter, which are the characteristics of the continental climate. Its average annual temperature is 11.1℃, within the average annual temperature of South Korea (10-16℃). It has relatively much rainfall (1,321 ㎜), and its relative humidity is 69.6%. The sun shines for 2,115 hours a year, and the wind blows from northwest at the average velocity of 3.3 m/sec.

Gwangju's average annual temperature has exceeded 12℃ since the start of the 2000s, and has constantly been on the rise since the 1990s due to global warming. Gwangju has been showing abnormal weather conditions in winter and summer of late, with the lowest temperature in winter dropping because of the cold air mass and the local topography of the mountains running along Gyeongancheon River.