Inhabited since 1400 BC from an Indo-European people, the Umbrians, one of the most interesting Italic civilizations, which founded many towns in Umbria present, including Amelia, Assisi, Città di Castello, Foligno, Tadino Gualdo, Gubbio Narni, Nocera Umbra, Otricoli, Spoleto , Terni, with archaeological remains of urban settlements and funerary inscriptions and documents of great importance as the Tables of Gubbio (III-I century BC), in the Umbrian language but in Etruscan and Latin alphabet, which describe ceremonies and sacrificial rites. 

After a long struggle between the Umbrians and Etruscans (VII-X century BC), who occupied the Umbria region to the right of the Tiber and founded cities such as Perugia, Bettona, Todi and Orvieto - many in the region, the signs of Etruscan presence: the tombs of Orvieto, the walls of Bettona, the Etruscan Arch and the Hypogeum of the Volumni in Perugia - Umbria passed under the dominion of the Romans (295 BC) and became one of the main regions of central Italy (the inhabitants obtained citizenship in 90 BC), which included north-west of the Casentino, in the west was limited by the Tiber between Città di Castello (Tifernum) and Otricoli (Otriculum), bordered on the east country of the Sabines, with Piceno and the Adriatic between the two rivers and Esino and Rubicon was crossed by the via Flaminia. After a series of rearrangements, in III century AD was united with Tuscany. The architecture is documented by Roman remains, partially well preserved, of public buildings in Perugia (amphitheater and the Temple of Mars), Spoleto (Arch of Drusus, Bloody Bridge, amphitheater), and amphitheatres of Assisi, Spello and Gubbio. 

After the fall of the empire was invaded by the Lombards and the Byzantines and its territory shrank between the Tiber River, the Nera and the Apennines, the most part under the Duchy of Spoleto. In 1198 Innocent III established his actual dominion over the Duchy, replacing the Duke with a rector, while all the Umbrian towns, even those who, like Perugia, were outside the territory of the Duchy, voluntarily submitted themselves to the Church. But in the Middle Ages also developed a flourishing civilization in many city centers. In the first decades of the fourteenth century. continued expansion of Perugia and the first lordships (Trinci of Foligno, Gabrielli of Gubbio, and intervened in the struggles of conquest also Malatesta, Montefeltro, Orsini) made ​​of new nominal papal sovereignty. The ongoing struggles between municipalities, gentlemen, the Holy See made Umbria a land of soldiers and soldiers of fortune; Braccio da Montone also managed to establish an umbrian territorial lordship. 

In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance Umbria shone for the impetus given to the arts with its schools of architecture, sculpture and painting, who left splendid monuments and works in almost all the major centers of the region. 
The Romanesque architecture, which is influenced by Tuscan influences, but that is distinguished by the characteristic decoration of facades, includes buildings such as San Rufino in Assisi, St. Peter in Spoleto, St. Sylvester and St. Michele in Bevagna. Masterpieces of Gothic architecture are the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi and Orvieto Cathedral facade by Lorenzo Maitani. This period is also characterized by civil architecture, with the first public buildings (Perugia, Gubbio, Orvieto, Todi). Also noteworthy is the work of architects from Tuscany, Lombardy and Veneto; very large influence of Francesco Laurana, Francesco di Giorgio Martini (Ducal Palace in Gubbio) and Bramante (St. Mary of Consolation in Todi) while the sculptor Agostino di Duccio also designed the facade of San Bernardino in Perugia. 

The painting took on extraordinary importance as a result of fundamental cycles painted by the greatest artists of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but also the Roman Tuscan, in St. Francis in Assisi. The influence of these painters, Giotto and the Sienese especially, was very great in the development of the Umbrian at least until the end of the fifteenth century, for the presence of Filippo Lippi at Spoleto and  Luca Signorelli at Orvieto. The most important painters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were Pietro Perugino and Pinturicchio, also very active outside the region and teacher of Raphael. Also notable is the influence exerted between Umbria and Marche the School of Ottaviano Nelli (1375 - 1444), famous painter of Gubbio.

In the field of the minor arts are to remember the production of majolica (Orvieto, but especially Gubbio with Mastro Giorgio Andreoli), the miniature (Oderisi da Gubbio), gold jewelry, carving and wood carving. 

The region was finally incorporated to the Papal States (nominally since the end of the XII century but in fact in 1549, after the capture of Perugia), and followed the story. In 1808 it was occupied by the French (Department of Trasimeno) but returned to the Papal States, where it remained (except for the brief of the Roman Republic and the subsequent occupation of Austria) until 1860, when, after the violent riots of the previous year (massacres of Perugia), was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy through plebiscite. 

During the Second World War, the region has not experienced major military confrontations and bombings, only Terni and Foligno were affected in their buildings and monuments. In addition to a new economic development and tourism, Umbria will host after the Second World War important social and religious events, related to the city of Assisi. More recently, the 1997 earthquake has hurt cities like Assisi and Foligno, as well as numerous smaller towns.