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Thousand years ago, from the end of the Palaeolithic era, throughout the Mesolithic and the Neolithic periods, the region served as a resting ground for bands of people wandering along the Vistula. During the Bronze Age, from approximately 1300 B.C., the Lusatian peoples established a number of settlements within the area of present-day Torun, on both banks of the river. In Roman times, the famous "amber route" passed nearby. In the early Middle Ages, numerous human settlements spread throughout the whole region. 

Torun, for hundreds of years known as "the queen of the Vistula" or "the inland port of the Polish Baltic areas". Of the venerable cities situated on the Vistula, Torun's history, and particularly that of the Old Town, has proved particularly closely intertwined with the river. around 1236, the settlement was moved to a new site within the boundaries of today's Old Town. At first it only occupied about half its later area forming a rectangle whose longer side ran along the Vistula. Several streets were laid out at that time: Sw. Ducha, St., Zeglarska, St., Lazienna, St., Mostowa, each more than 10 metres wide and leading to the river. Soon afterwards, presumably in the 1240s, the Knights' castle  was also relocated to the vicinity of the newly moved town, near the town's eastern border on the site of an abandoned Slavonic settlement.

The further, northern part of the city was laid out and built up during the later half of the century. A large town market  was laid out, where a town hall, a cloth hall, and stalls were built.

The location of Torun on a major water route and at a convenient crossing place was one of the most significant factors contributing to the town's growth. In addition to profits from fishing and the use of its lands, forests, and pastures, from various crafts, including brewing, paper making, pottery, and the manufacture of metal objects, trade also played an important role in bringing wealth to the town and its residents. Their opulence was reflected in the rich output of outstanding artists and house builders.

The deed of location granted Torun some 3,000 ha of land. The land brought in handsome profits and enabled the town to erect and maintain many municipal buildings. Around the mid-13th century, the process of replacing the wooden-and-earthen fortifications around the Old Town with a system of brick walls, gates, and towers was initiated.

The northward movement of the town's territorial limits resulted in the incorporation within its area of the Franciscan monastery. The monks probably settled in 1239 just outside the walls and soon afterwards started erecting the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary and some monasterial buildings. Today's brick temple boasting three 27-metre-high aisles, is one of the most magnificent examples of the "high hall" with a beautiful inspiring interior.

The town's market place was initially located in Zeglarska St., which was approximately 19 metres wide. The construction of the brick, Church of SS Johns,  started around 1260. It was extended in the following centuries and achieved its final magnificent form, dominating today's panorama, in the last quarter of the 15th century.

Probably around the middle of the 13th century, at  Zeglarska St., the "Social House" was erected. It was built of brick in the form of a "housing tower". Its facade was decorated with stone stripes and green-glazed bricks, and finished off with attractive crenels. The edifice belonged to the Brotherhood of St. George, an association of the town's merchant elite. Its aim was "to promote sociability, piety and social action".

In 1313, the function of the building was taken over by an edifice, later called "Artus' Hall", erected in the Old Town Rynek Square. It was the meeting place for Torun's patriciate and the scene of many historic events, e.g. the signing of the second Torun peace agreement. In 1264, the settlement was granted city statutes and thus formed a separate administrative unit called the New Town, with its own council and court. When deciding on the layout of the town, the Old Town councillors took great care not to grant it direct access to the Vistula, thus ensuring that it could not participate in international trade. At the end of the Middle Ages, another autonomous urban unit appeared within the area of today's Torun, in addition to the Old and New Town, their suburbs, and Kepa Bazarowa. Around the year 1425, on the left bank of the Vistula, not far from the present-day road bridge, the Polish king Vladislav Jagiello ordered the erection of a castle for a royal burgrave. Soon the place attracted many settlers and a whole new town emerged with its own harbour, foreign traders' offices, inns and taverns. A parish church of St. Nicholas was erected. The settlement has been known under several different names: the Nieszawa Castle, Dybow, the Dybow Castle and Nieszawa. The last name prevailed until Torun's inhabitants, threatened by the competition created by the new town, persuaded King Casimir Jagiellonczyk to relocate the town about 40 kilometres up the river, where it still exists under the name of Nieszawa.

The New Town was separated from the Old, by a double line of defensive walls with gates, towers, and a moat. In the parts bordering the suburbs, the settlement was protected in the same manner. The town's spatial layout was similar to the Old Town, with a vast town square  in its centre, where a brick town hall was built already at the beginning of the 14th century.

In the south-east corner of the New Town the parish church of St. James was erected. The foundation stone was laid by Herman, the Chemo bishop, in 1309, and works were completed in 1350. Five years earlier patronage over it had been given to the nuns from a Torun nunnery, which initially followed the Cistercian and then the Benedictine rule. The second partition of Poland in 1793 was a severe shock to Torun, as well as to the whole country. 

On 23 January, as a demonstration, the Council ordered the town gates to be closed before the approaching Prussian troops. The city was only protected by 50 soldiers and did not have the slightest chance of defence. This event marked the beginning of over 100 years of Prussian rule, interrupted only by a few years of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and the sieges during the Napoleonic wars. 

The entire 19th century is characterized by deep transformations of Torun. The city found itself near the Russo-Prussian border. The former trade routes lost all their significance. Of prime importance now was the city's strategic role as a major fortress and garrison. This determined the course of changes that Torun underwent, during the 19th century. Even the construction of a railway station in 1862, and then a railway junction, was dictated by military considerations.

In the 19th century, for military reasons, the Churches of St. George and St. Laurence situated outside the city walls were pulled down. Earlier, during the Swedish wars in the middle of the 17th century another medieval church, that of the Holy Ghost, situated outside the Old Town walls on the Vistula bank and a Benedictine convent connected with it were also demolished.

The north-west corner of the town was the site of a Dominican monastery. The first monks arrived and settled there even before the location act. Their church and monastery buildings were ready around the middle of the 14th century, but extensive construction and decoration work continued. In 1834, by an order of the Prussian authorities, the church and convent buildings were demolished. This act was preceded by the dissolution of the Dominican order. The magnificent set of stained glass windows from the monastery complex was moved to the Malbork castle and is now on display, at the District Museum located in the Old Town Hall. A number of splendid sculptures and paintings found shelter in St. James' Church.

Torun returned to Poland in 1920. After long battles in Pomerania, against the Prussian troops organized and supported by the local Junkers, the red-and-white Polish flag was flown on the Old Town Hall in January and an activist of the Toruñ Scientific Society, Dr Otto Steinborn, was appointed the town's commissioner-mayor. The city became the seat of the Pomeranian voivod-ship, Pomeranian District of Polish State Railways, headquarters of the VIII Military District, and numerous other institutions. 1923 saw the opening of the municipal library and a Polish Radio Broadcasting Station was built in 1933.

7 September 1939, when the German army marched into Torun, marked the beginning of an era of terror and extermination of the Polish population. Not only were people, mostly the intelligentsia, ordered to leave the city, but also on the basis of the previously drawn up lists, the Nazis arrested and executed several thousand of the most active participants of the political, social, and cultural life of Torun and its vicinity. The place of their martyrdom was the woods in the nearby Barbarka and the Fort VII moat. Torun was incorporated into the Third Reich and, consequently, all forms of Polish cultural life were prohibited. Public use of the Polish language was a crime punishable by concentration camp. The city was populated with German families sent from the Reich. Despite very difficult conditions the local Poles took to the underground, mainly within the organizational structures of ZWZ AK and Gryf Pomorski. In accordance with Hitler's order, Torun was prepared for a long-term defence. Luckily for the city, there was no direct fighting within its area. During the night of 31 January 1945, a German commander led the twenty-thousand-strong garrison out of Torun, believing that they would be able to break through to Grudziadz, already besieged by Soviet troops. As a result, the monumental complex did not suffer any damage in the course of liberation. Some time later, the Luftwaffe dropped a number of bombs in an attempt to destroy a temporary bridge built by the Soviet army engineers, but only succeeded in destroying two historical town houses: one in Zeglarska St. and another in Wola Zamkowa.

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