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Raunds is situated 21 miles (34 km) north-east of Northampton. The town is on the southern edge of the Nene Valley and surrounded by arable farming land.

Nearest civilian airports are Luton 50 miles, Birmingham International Airport 62 miles and East Midlands 65 miles.

Raunds is close to Stanwick Lakes, a country park developed from gravel pits and managed by the Rockingham Forest Trust. This park is internationally recognised for its birdlife and can be reached on foot from Raunds along Meadow Lane bridleway.

In the mid-1980s, during sand excavations in the Nene Valley, the remains of a Roman villa were discovered. Excavation of the area, near Stanwick, was delayed by several years while archaeologists studied the remains. In 2002 Channel 4's Time Team excavated a garden and found remains of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery.

The place-name Raunds is first attested in an Anglo-Saxon charter of c. 972-992, where it appears as Randan. It appears as Rande in Domesday Book (1086); and as Raundes in a later survey of Northamptonshire. The name is the plural of the Old English rand, meaning "border".

Raunds played a role in the boot and shoe industry until its decline in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1905 a dispute arose about wages to be paid to army bootmakers, which culminated in a march to London in May that year. Several factories remained into the early 1990s but all are now closed, with many being demolished and housing estates built. The Coggins boot factory was the last to go, and the site of it is now Coggins Close. The land on which the shoe factory and the original Coggins houses stood (not Coggins Close), was purchased by Robert Coggins on 25 February 1899 from the Duchy of Lancaster, for the sum of £14.10s.0d (£14.50). The houses are still there, but were sold to Charles Robinson of Wellingborough in 1934. Robert Coggins lived in the hall where his picture hangs in the meeting room, and he is buried in St Peter's Churchyard. There is no industry in the town now, although there are some industrial sites on the outskirts.

Raunds once held the record for the highest temperature in Britain at 36.7 ⁰C (98.1 ⁰F), set on 10 August 1911, which stood until 1990.

Notable buildings include:

• St Peter's Church, Church Street.
• The Manor House, 2 Manor Street.