The city is one of the main harbours in Italy, especially for oil refineries (Sonatrach and others as part of the complex Augusta-Priolo) which are in its vicinity.

The old town is an island, made in the 16th century by cutting an isthmus, now connected to the Sicilian mainland by two bridges.

After the Angevin domination, it became part of Aragonese Sicily and, from 1362, it was a fief of Guglielmo Raimondo II Moncada.

[7] When British and American forces arrived in Sicily, the Sicilians did not regard them as conquering invaders but rather greeted them as "emancipators come to lift the evil burden of fascism from their shoulders.

This part of the operation went entirely according to plan and Augusta was captured on July 13, 1943, by the British Eighth Army, led by Britain's General Montgomery.