Later the Black Sea littoral was overrun by successive waves of Asiatic nomads, including the Sarmatians, Ostrogoths, Huns, Avars, Gokturks, Khazars, Tatars and Circassians who are native to the Northwestern Caucasus.

In 1781, during the reign of Abdul Hamid I, French engineers built a fortress at Anapa for the Ottomans.

It was included in Black Sea Okrug of Kuban Oblast and was granted town status in 1846.

Elizabeth Pilenko, later named as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church, was the mayor during the Russian Revolution.

During World War II, it was occupied and totally demolished by Nazi Germany with the help of Romanian troops between August 30, 1942 and September 22, 1943.

Anapa seldom attracts tourists from outside Russia due to its modest infrastructure and its inconvenient accessibility from Europe via Moscow or Krasnodar.

[15] Compared to cities further south along the coast like Novorossiysk and Sochi, Anapa receives considerably less rainfall but has somewhat colder winters.

In 2010 the libraries of Anapa received more than 8,000 books, and magazines and newspapers were ordered costing more than 1,000,000 rubles; in addition, nine hundred CDs were purchased.