Mainly level, the landscape slightly varies in the stretch extending from Otranto to the farthest Capo di Leuca where there are typical low hills named Serre.
Surrounded by two seas, the Adriatic and the Ionian sea, it is characterized by more than 150 km of coasts with an alternation of white sand beaches and cliffs falling vertically to the sea, rich of karst-origin caves.
On the coasts, then, at a distance of three or four km from each other there are huge XV-century and XVI-century coastal towers having the function of sighting military bases. Wherever, the white calcareous rock is visible as well as slight reddish earth layers with a vegetation of coloured and smelling maquis.
Inside, there are sown fields of red earth rich of iron, vineyards and sometimes secular olive groves with the typical white pagghiari (shelters for tools and animals) and dry-stone walls.
Here and there we find splendid fortified farmhouses, erected to defend against Saracen attacks dating back to period between the XV - XVIII centuries A. D.
As the rest of Apulia, the Terra d'Otranto is a karstic region, therefore there is no river running on the surface. On the contrary, rain water is channelled into the subsoil through vore and capienti (karstic-origin swallowing holes) creating a rich underground hydrography which in some case originates sulphureous sources like those in St. Cesarea.