Situated at the eastern edge of Kii Peninsula, Mie stretches long from north to south, bordering on six prefectures. Mie is blessed with a rich nature comprised of mountains, valleys, river and ocean, constituting varied natural scenery with more than one third of the prefectural land designated as natural park areas. Its complex topography of plains, basins and mountains adds diverse local climatic features to different parts of the prefecture. Rainfall in the southern part of the Prefecture is among the heaviest in Japan.

Ise City is home to Ise Shrine, which has been attracting countless pilgrims since old days. Pilgrimage to Ise spread across the country in the Edo period (1600-1868) and brought information and cultural influence from other parts of the country via highways that crisscross the prefecture, making Mie an important meeting point of the western Japanese culture centering on Osaka and Kyoto and the Edo (present Tokyo) culture.

Mie, with its active agriculture and marine product industry, is known as a major production center of Ise tea, Matsusaka beef, Ise lobsters, Matoya oysters and abalones, as well as cultured pearls produced in Ago Bay. Yokkaichi City is an active industrial center mainly comprised of petrochemical industry, automobile and other transportation machinery, and electric machinery and equipment. There is also a marked concentration of high-tech industries such as liquid crystal and fuel cell manufacturing.

Ise-Shima region has many popular tourist attractions, including Ise Shrine, Shima Spanish Village, Toba Aquarium and Mikimoto Pearl Island. In 2004, Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range, which border on Mie, Nara and Wakayama Prefectures, were designated UNESCO World Cultural Heritage sites.