West Yorkshire Police serve approximately 2.2 million people living in one of the five metropolitan districts of Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield. The physical area, of some 2000 square kilometres or 780 square miles, contains the West Yorkshire conurbation and a network of motorway and trunk roads which allow easy access to and from other population centres.

The Force area is very varied combining busy cities and towns with quiet villages and picturesque rural locations. People are equally varied and represent a diverse range of ethnic cultural and economic backgrounds.

For this reason, the policing is delivered from 5 separate police districts, providing most of the day-to-day policing services performed through the county. There are also teams of specialist police and support staff personnel based at headquarters and at various other locations around the Force.