Tianmen is a county-level administrative unit directly under the jurisdiction of Hubei Province (county-level city directly under the jurisdiction of Hubei Province), a member of Wuhan Metropolitan Circle and the middle reaches of the Yangtze River City group, a provincial regional central city, one of the 10 large and medium-sized cities in the province, one of the 13 regional central cities in the province, a major node city in the Han River basin, and one of the top 100 counties in China. Tianmen is located in central and southern Hubei Province, north of Jianghan Plain, north of Dahongshan, south of Han River, east of Wuhan; As of November 2020, the city has jurisdiction over 3 subdistricts, 21 towns and 1 township, with a total area of 2,622 square kilometers and a permanent population of 1,158,640.

Tianmen, known as Jingling Tomb in ancient times, is a famous historical and cultural city, the important birthplace of Chu culture, the hometown of Luyu, the "tea sage", the site of Shijiahe Site, the birthplace of Jingling School of literature, and the hometown of steamed vegetables in China. In the Neolithic age, Shijiahe Site was the center of prehistoric civilization in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River for thousands of years. Lu Yu was born here in the Tang Dynasty, and the publication of his book The Book of Tea marked the birth of Chinese tea ceremony. The Ming Dynasty writers Zhong Xing and Tan Yuanchun created the "Jingling School" here. In the Qing Dynasty, Jingzhou Flower Drum Opera, one of the three operas in Hubei Province, originated here. In 1726, in order to avoid the name of Kangxi mausoleum, it was renamed "Tianmen" because of Tianmen Mountain. Since modern times, Tianmen has produced Hu Pinzhi, the important minister of the late Qing Dynasty, Zou Difan, the famous poet, and a group of outstanding "Heaven merchants" represented by Chen Dongsheng. The tradition of worshipping literature and education and daring to be first makes Tianmen the hometown of the top scholar and the capital of inland overseas Chinese.

Tianmen, 90 kilometers away from Wuhan city, is the bridgehead to the west of Wuhan, with Shanghai-Chengdu Expressway (Wujing Expressway), Wuhan-Chongqing Expressway (Wutian Expressway), Shanghai-Han-Chengdu Railway (Hanyi Railway), Shanghai-Chongqing-Chengdu high-speed railway (high-speed railway along the Yangtze River) and other national trunk roads and railway transit. In 2021, Tianmen's gross domestic product (GDP) was 71.889 billion yuan, an increase of 12.1% compared with the previous year at comparable prices.