Muzaffarabad is the capital of the Pakistani territory of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and is the gateway of Neelum Valley.

The city is located in Muzaffarabad District on the banks of the Jhelum and Neelum rivers. The elevation of Muzaffarabad is 737 m (2,418 ft) above sea level.

The district is bounded by Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in the west, by the Kupwara and Baramulla districts of Indian-administered territory of Jammu and Kashmir in the east, and the Neelum District

of Azad Kashmir in the north.

The city was near the epicenter of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, which had a magnitude of 7.6.

The earthquake destroyed 50% of the buildings in the city (including most of the official buildings) and is estimated to have killed up to 80,000 people in the Pakistani-controlled areas of Kashmir.

The district of Muzaffarabad is administratively subdivided into 2 tehsils, which are sub-divided into 25 Union Councils.

The major language of the district is generally  considered to be a variety of Pahari.

Though occasionally referred to in the literature as Chibhali  or Poonchi,it is locally known as Hindko.

Its speakers tend to identify more with the Hindko spoken to the west, even though perceiving their speech to be
only slightly different from the varieties of Bagh District and of the core

Pahari areas further south in Murree.

According to the Pakistan District Education Rankings 2015, Muzaffarabad is ranked 42 out of 148 districts
in terms of education. For facilities and infrastructure, the district is ranked 101 out of 148.