The area was originally inhabited by the Gamilaroi tribe of Aboriginal peoples, and first settled by Europeans in the late 1830s and was proclaimed a village in 1865.

[2] European occupation of the Baradine district commenced in the 1830s with the establishment by Andrew Brown of a pastoral run named 'Barradean'.

[11] In 1899 the settlement of Baradine was described as "a couple of hotels, a school, store, and post and telegraph office, with a dozen or so of dwellings".

Baradine was at "the edge of an immense tract of forest country" stretching to Boggabri to the east and Pillaga to the north-west.

Baradine is the administrative centre of the Pilliga Scrub, whose history is documented in A Million Wild Acres by local farmer Eric Rolls in the 1970s.

The State forests and National Park reserves of the Pilliga are part of a vast and unusual woodland, famous for its cypress pine, its broom plains, its vivid spring wildflowers, its koalas and a rich supply of honey-bearing flora.

Baradine has two hotels with accommodation, a great caravan park with group cabin accommodation, Bed & Breakfast, two cafes, bowling & recreation club (with squash courts), skate park opened 2020 at the playing fields, an amazing National Parks and Wildlife Discovery Centre, a mechanical workshop/fuel station, a hospital with attached medical centre, a CRT rural supplies merchant, a fantastic IGA supermarket, a chemist, swimming pool (seasonal), lively Catholic and Anglican churches with regular services, police station, post office, pre-school and two schools - St John's Catholic Primary School and Baradine Central School.

Baradine is located in the heart of the Pilliga forest, known for harvesting the Australian white cypress-pine which is a termite-resistant timber.