Its central location between a plain and a mountain has made it commercially and strategically significant and has had a great impact on its growth. In the past, Tulkarm was a caravan station and a trading center for products from the city's surrounding villages and farms, as well as a point from which armies crossed to Egypt and the Levant (al-Sham).

It has an adjoining refugee camp, and is surrounded by Israeli settlements.

It's probably easiest to get in from Nablus. It is about 15 km (9.3 mi) west of Nablus, further southwest of Jenin, and 15 km (9.3 mi) east of the Israeli coastal city of Netanya.

• 32.31388835.0282941 Tulkarm Archaeological Museum, Paris Street (in front of the town hall). Housed in an Ottoman Post and Telegraph building from 1908, it has many artifacts from the Roman period onward. (updated Mar 2017)
• 32.31256435.0266652 Church of Saint George (كنيسة القديس جاورجيوس) (In the city center). Historic Greek Orthodox church and one of the oldest churches in Palestine, established in 1830.     (updated Aug 2023)

• Mega Land ‎(ميجا لاند), an amusement park.