In Romania: Prigor, Bozovici, Dalboşeţ, Şopotu Nou, Sasca Montană, Naidăş, Socol
The Nera drains an area of 1,240 km², belongs to the Black Sea drainage basin and it is not navigable.
The mouth itself is a popular fishing spot.
In the final section, the Nera is 20–40 m wide with varying depths, and as the riverbed is made mostly of gravel, it spills over in series of limans, filled with murky waters. At Vračev Gaj the river turns south and empties into the Danube near the village of Stara Palanka. In the border section, the Nera flows through the depression of Bela Crkva (Belocrkvanska kotlina Cyrillic: Белоцркванска котлина), and settlements on the Romanian side include Lescoviţa, Zlatiţa and Socol, while on the Serbian side there is only one village on the river itself, Kusić, with several settlements in the vicinity of the river: Kaluđerovo, the town of Bela Crkva, Vračev Gaj and Banatska Palanka. It passes next to the villages of Sasca Română, Sasca Montana, Slatina Nera and Naidăş, at which point it becomes the border river between Romania and Serbia for the remaining 27 km. In this section, the Nera receives its left tributary, the Rudăria, and passes next to many villages (Prilipeţ, Dalboşeţ, Moceriş), until it reaches Şopotu-Nou, where it sharply turns to the northwest, still curving around the Semenic mountains. Reaching the village of Borlovenii Vechi, the Nera turns southwest, flowing between the Semenic and Banat Mountains. The river starts at the junction of headwaters Nergana and Nerganiţa flows straight to the south from the Piatra Grozbe peak, under which it springs.
The Nera rises in the Semenic mountains, the easternmost part of the Banat region, south of the city of Reşiţa, in the Caraş-Severin County of Romania.