Rupnagar, formerly Ropar, runs along the Sutlej where it leaves the hills, with tehsils at Rupnagar, Anandpur Sahib, Nangal, Chamkaur Sahib and Morinda.
It holds Ropar, one of the first Harappan sites excavated after independence; Anandpur Sahib where the Khalsa was created; Kiratpur; Chamkaur Sahib; Nangal and the Bhakra system; and Virasat-e-Khalsa.
Hola Mohalla at Anandpur is the largest Nihang gathering in the world.
Its northern part is Kandi and Shivalik forest, and it has the most surviving natural vegetation of any Punjab district.
The Ropar wetland is a Ramsar site.
What is not recorded: the Shivalik forest's condition, the district's hill villages, and the fossil beds in its portion of the Shivaliks.
The district holds the Sutlej where it leaves the hills, which is why Bhakra, Nangal and the Ropar headworks are all in it, and why it carries more of Punjab's water infrastructure than any other district.
It also holds the whole sequence of the winter of 1704: Anandpur, the Sarsa crossing at Parivar Vichhora, and Chamkaur Sahib, about fifty-five kilometres apart by road from first to last.
Morinda and Chamkaur Sahib tehsils are ordinary Powadh farming country, and most of the district's population and economy are there on the plain rather than in the parts it is known for.