Sunderland lies at the heart of the City of Sunderland, a metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. It is situated at the mouth of the River Wear.

The name "Sunderland" is reputed to come from Soender-land (soender/sunder being the Anglo-Saxon infinitive, meaning "to part", (cf. "(a)sunder"), likely to be reference to the valley carved by the River Wear on whose South bank the original settlement of Sunderland was founded.