The northern hills of Samaria (Shomron in Hebrew) are bordered by the Jezreel Valley, the Jordan Valley in the east, the Carmel Ridge in the North and the Sharon plain in the West.
Further south of Samaria are the Judean mountains and Jerusalem. After the reign of Solomon, the biblical king, his kingdom was split in two in the 10th century BC. Samaria was the second capital of the Northern kingdom of Israel; hence the name was used for the whole region.
From the Biblical point of view, during the Children of Israel's conquest this land was given to the tribes of Benjamin and Ephraim by Joshua. The New Testament authors and historian Josephus Flavius speak of Samaritans as a different ethnic group than the Jewish people.
Following the Israel’s Six Day War in 1967, this part of the West Bank territories was given the an ancient Biblical name of Samaria once again.