It is situated amid mud-flats and marshes on the left bank of the Danube facing the Bulgarian city of Ruse on the opposite bank. Three small islands face the city, and a larger one shelters its port, Smarda. The rich grain-growing land to the north is traversed by a railway to Bucharest, the first line opened in Romania, which was built in 1869 and afterwards extended to Smarda. Giurgiu exports timber, grain, salt and petroleum, and imports coal, iron, and textiles.

The Giurgiu-Ruse Friendship Bridge, in the shared Bulgarian-Romanian section of the Danube, crosses the river in the outskirts of the city.

Local Council of Giurgiu Municipality is a Deliberative authority with headquarters in Giurgiu Municipality, Bulevardul Bucureşti, nr. 49-51. The Local Council of Giurgiu Municipality consists of 21 councilors elected through universal, equal, direct and free vote, under the conditions provided by the Law of Local Elected. The Mayor in charge of Giurgiu Municipality is elected according to the law and validated by Giurgiu Court. The Mayor performs a position of public authority, under the law. The Mayor ensures the observance of the fundamental rights and liberties of the citizens, the provisions of the Constitution, the implementation of the laws, the decrees of the President of Romania, the decisions and ordinances of the Government and the decisions of the Local Council. In order to implement the competencies given by the above normative acts, the Mayor benefits from a specialized apparatus that he leads and he is assisted by two deputy mayors, a public administrator and a secretary of the municipality(a public civil servant). The Mayor, the deputy mayor, the public administrator, the secretary of the municipality together with the specialty apparatus represent GIURGIU CITY HALL OF GIURGIU MUNICIPALITY, a functional structure with permanent activity that fulfills the decisions of the Local Council and the provisions of the Mayor, solving the current problems of the local community. The Giurgiu City Hall is headquartered in Giurgiu, Bulevardul Bucureşti, no. 49-51.

The earliest testimonies of a human settlement in the Giurgiului area date back to the Mesolithic (millennia 10-7 BC). As evidenced by the archaeological research, the Giurgiului area was densely populated during the period (1st century BC). He suspects that the capital of Burebista was located nearby, at Popeşti, on the Argeş River. Roman Emperor Justinian (483-565) built here Theodorapolis.

Giurgiu 1848
The hypothesis that the city of Giurigiu was founded by Genovese and named after the patron saint of Genovei (San Giorgio) has been propagated to this day. This belief in the nineteenth century, although widely circulated, was subsequently rejected by specialists, and today it is no longer a valid working hypothesis.

The first sure mention of Giurgiu is in the Codex Latinus Parisinus from the beginning of the 15th century, in the form of Zorio. The adjoining entry: "deserted place" suggests the destruction of the fortress during the Ottoman campaign of 1394 against Mircea the Elder.

In 1420 it was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, who thus wanted to have traffic control on the Danube. The Ottomans called Giurgiu "Yergöğü", becoming the residence of a raion formed by his immediate hinterland.

As a fortified city, Giurgiu played an important role in the frequent wars between the Romanians and the Turks in controlling the Danube, especially in the anti-Ottoman campaign of Michael the Brave (see the Battle of Giurgiu), and later in the Russian-Turkish wars.

The ruins of Giurgiu
Enlarged in 1560, the fortress became a true bridgehead for sultans across the Danube. The importance of the fortress is also enhanced by the receipt of the title of kaza. The existence of such a point on the left of the Danube and very close to Bucharest led to a major interference of the sultans in the internal affairs of Wallachia. This explains the conquest raids of Michael the Brave. The Voivode managed to keep the fortress for a few years after the great victory in Giurgiu in 1595. Two years later, the Turks returned to the city, which they rebuilt and increased. For almost 150 years, the fortress had never suffered sieges. The last Romanian voivode who tried to recover it was Mihnea III, but this only did not lead to the restoration of the edifice and the fortification of the city. Gradually, the city of the island is losing importance. The last time it was used as a defensive bastion was during the Russian-Ottoman battles (1768-1774). Although it was conquered by the Russians, the fortress returns to the Turks who fortify the city, becoming an ammunition repository. In all the Russian-Austro-Ottoman wars that followed the city was besieged.

Giurgiu was returned to Wallachia in 1829, at that time the walls and fortifications were completely destroyed by the Turks before they retreated, so the only remaining defense was the castle located on the island of Slobozia, connected to the shore with a bridge .

The first railway from the Kingdom of Romania was built between Bucharest and Giurgiu, the Giurgiu station being inaugurated on 1 November 1869.

At the end of the 19th century, Giurgiu had the status of an urban commune, the residence of Vlasca County, with a population of 11,890 inhabitants, in proportion to three quarters of Romanians. There was a 20-bed county hospital, a county court, a de jure court with jurisdiction over the Marginea and a few communes in the Calenstea mine in Vlasca County, two beer factories, one spirits, four steam mills, mechanical sawing machine for fir wood, post and telegraph. There were four girls' schools and eight boys, with a total of 694 students, and a middle school with 168 students; the religious cults had six orthodox churches (since during the Ottoman period the Christian cult could not build edifice buildings, most of them date back to 1830, one of them being the "St. Nicholas" church, being a transformed Muslim glacier and the "Assumption of the Mother" over an underground church that functioned during Turkish domination), a Catholic chapel and two Mosaic temples. The Socec Yearbook of 1925 records the city with 20,895 inhabitants.

In 1950, Giurgiu became a regional city in Bucharest, becoming the residence of Giurgiu district, subordinated to this region. Between 1952-1954, the communist regime, supported by the USSR, built the Giurgiu-Ruse Bridge (or the Bridge of Friendship), the first bridge over the Danube that links Romania to Bulgaria. In 1968, the city was declared a town, but it lost the role of administrative center, being in Ilfov County. He became a county residence with the establishment of Giurgiu County in 1981 following a regional administrative reorganization.