The town is enclosed by the gentle knolls of the subregion called Külső Somogy from the north and by the bluff downhill forests of the other subregion Zselic from the south. Kaposvár has already been an important intersection of several traffic roads before the regulation of the River Kapos, thus being the base for any kind of development for town and its citizens.

Nowadays Kaposvár is a developing junction for rail- and public roads, having a tight connection to all the settlements of the agglomeration, as well as to further, overknoll ones. The European railway line from Budapest towards the Mediterranean (Rijeka, Split, Zagreb, Venice) leads through Kaposvár and other towns of the county.

Ten million years ago the territory of the present town was covered by the Pannonian Sea. The complete surface of this land including hydrography, the north-southern knolls covered by mighty forests and the swampy riverine valleys developed after the last glacial period.

The landscape has changed naturally, during several thousands of years, until getting its nowadays relief and the changes will be going on in the future. At the county centre there is a geological fracture lying approximately in the east-western direction and exactly in this fracture, in the harmonic embracement of the Zselic knolls You can find the River Kapos. Its flood-plain is covered by thin layers of different Holocene sedimental formations. A large number of human settlements were founded during the ages in this riverine valley including the largest among them, nowadays called Kaposvár.

The average height of Kaposvár over the sea level takes generally 135 meters. The annual rainfall is about 700 to 720 mm, the annual average temperature takes 10,7 °C.

The average of Januarys cold is about -0,9 °C, the heat in July is about 21,8 °C. The continental climate of the town is regularly and favourably influenced by Mediterranean impacts.

The River Kapos springs from three small branches to the south of the village Kiskorpád and the whole catchment area is collecting altogether 31 brooks, while eight further ones are running into the river inside the town and run down to the Sió Channel. The first riverbed regulation took place in 1835 but it was uncompleted so regular overflows endangered the local inhabitants by crushing damages. The final regulation was only finished after 1953.

The knolls of Kaposvár guarding the town from the south are mentioned as hills by natives. (These “hills” are: Kecel-, Iszák-, Körtönye-, Kapos-, Róma-, Ivánfa- and Som-hegy). The salient ridge of the knolls makes the characteristic gentle waving of the land upon the southern areas of Kaposvár.

The protected forests surrounding the town (Gombás-forest, Deseda, etc.) are regularly visited by the friends of nature. To the north of the town a long artificial fishing lake was fashioned by damping up the Brook Deseda increasing the variety of the landscape.

North-southern valleys became popular excursion objects on behalf of their natural values.

A few examples of these are Tókaji Forest Reserve, the surroundings of the suburban village Töröcske with another artificial fishing-lake, the Gyertyános Valley or the region around the village Szenna, Róma-hill and the Nádasdi Forest.
Remains of once vast trackless forests are attractive, colourful objects of excursions in the region. The forests used to be mighty enough to be unbroken, there were only a few clearings, where people carried farming and animal breeding on the logged land.

There are a lot of lakes being plenteous in fish in the surroundings. The largest one among them is the mentioned Lake Deseda including 8 million m³ of water, being 8 km long with an average width of 3-400 m and with a total water surface of 260 ha . Nowadays it is a locally protected reservation area.

On behalf of the rich stock of game the mighty forests in the region Zselic are very popular with national as well as foreign hunters.

Hunting lodges situated in the forests surrounding the town offer excellent possibilities for hunters interested in either big game or just a pheasant or for those who just want to have a good relaxation in the lap of nature.