Valjevo is a town surrounded by mountain ranges. The rivers Obnica, Jablanica and Gradac run donwhill towards the very centre of the settlement. Valjevo is located in the Kolubara River valley. The rivers Obnica and Jablanica are forming the Kolubara River in Valjevo.
For centuries the Valjevo Valley has been spacious enough to take in all urban elements of the town, but the fast development caused by rapid industrialization in the middle of the 20th century, is the reason why Valjevo is spreading up and down the hills that surround the valley, as well as along the wide banks of the Kolubara River. Nowadays Valjevo is an important administrative, economic and cultural centre. It is the centre of the Municipality and the District of Kolubara, and with its 60,000 inhabitants it is one of the largest and most developed towns in Serbia.

In the course of the troubled past of Serbian people, Valjevo and its townsmen have often had a prominent, sometimes even a leading role in the struggle for national liberation. Aside of military and national leaders, Valjevo region has given a number of renowned writers, artists and scientists. At the same time it is one of the oldest urban settlements in Serbia. In the documents which serve as the evidence of the past, the name Valjevo was mentioned for the first time in a document which is kept at the Historical Archives in Dubrovnik, dating from 1393. Its uninterrupted exsistence has been recorded during the following six centuries. Those centuries were full of crucial events directly or indirectly influencing the fast changes of the town features, causing its rises and falls during its historical development. In the past, the travel writers who were passing through Valjevo called it: a city, a town, a settlement and even a village, although a well-known one. Of course, it was influenced by the current conditions they saw at the moment they went through the Valjevo Valley, as well as the terms based on the experience from their own cultural background, but it can also be added that in many cases the terminology changed, meaning one thing during one period, and another one later on.

Nowadays Valjevo is a town. That word, in its widest sense, means a big settlement that represents an economic, administrative and cultural centre of the region. It is also the centre of numerous institutions , the source of new ideas and the centre of the development for its surroundings.

In addition to numerous business companies, there are 7 elementary schools and 5 secondary schools (grammar, economic, technical, medical and agricultural) and one college, the College of Management in Valjevo. The Museum, the Modern Gallery, the Historical Archives were founded several decades ago. Moreover, there are 4 TV stations and about 10 radio stations, one weekly and one monthly newspaper.