Rive de Gier is Located in the Loire department, on the border of the Rhône department. The altitude of the city varies from 227 to 394 meters. The municipal territory is located above the Loire coal basin.

In the Celtic and Roman Gaul eras, the town lay on the boundary between the Segusiavi and the Allobroges.

The name of Rive-de-Gier is used for the first time in the 11th century. Renaud de Forez surrounded the town by walls and ditches during the reign of Philip II of France (1165-1223) . A hospital is mentioned in 1447. At the end of the 16th century the population was estimated at between 1,600 and 1,700 souls.

Between 1562 and 1864 there were clashes between Protestants and Catholics. King Henry IV of France (1553-1610) spent time at Rive-de-Gier. There was a castle and a Romanesque church, but both have been destroyed. During the uprising in Lyon against the National Convention in 1793, thirteen armed people of Lyon were killed by the inhabitants of Rive-de-Gier when they returned through the town after being defeated at Saint-Étienne.

In 1831 a riot of gunsmiths in Saint-Étienne injured several and led to the arrest of 18 people, The same year the miners of Rive-de-Gier, and then the glass makers, went on strike. The miners went on strike again in 1840 and 1844. In 1848 Jean-Marie Sigward, a glass maker, acclaimed the Republic.

Rive-de-Gier has suffered the brunt of the massive disindustrialization of the 1980s and 1990s, with the massive loss of industrial jobs, the closure of the SSFR, and the July 2008 closure of the last operating glassworks in the Gier valley.

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