The Community Assembly of Suffolk is located in East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county town. 

The Anglo-Saxon settlement of Suffolk, and East Anglia generally, occurred on a large scale, possibly following a period of depopulation by the previous inhabitants, the Romanised descendants of the Iceni. By the fifth century, they had established control of the region. The Anglo-Saxon inhabitants later became the 'north folk' and the 'south folk', from which developed the names 'Norfolk' and 'Suffolk'.

West Suffolk, like nearby East Cambridgeshire, is renowned for archaeological finds from the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. Bronze Age artefacts have been found in the area between Mildenhall and West Row, in Eriswell and in Lakenheath. In the east of the county is Sutton Hoo, the site of one of England's most significant Anglo-Saxon archaeological finds, a ship burial containing a collection of treasures including a sword of state, helmet, gold and silver bowls, jewellery and a lyre. The Hoxne Hoard, to date the largest assembly of late Roman silver and gold discovered in Britain, was found near the village of Hoxne in 1992.