The two were parts of different administrative units for centuries, with Bydgoszcz starting as Polish and Toruń as Teutonic settlements, then becoming the biggest cities of Inowrocław Voivodeship and Chełmno Voivodeship in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, later in Germany of Bromberg district (Province of Posen) and Marienwerder district (West Prussia).

This would change only in the year of 1938, when Bydgoszcz was moved from the Poznań to the Pomeranian Voivodeship with Toruń, soon to take the role of the capital of the whole region.

[8] The postwar growth of the cities and the new political administrative landscape led to application of the term "Bydgoszcz-Toruń metropolitan area" which first appeared in the 1960s.

The Dybów Castle was the place where in 1454 King Casimir IV Jagiellon issued the famous Statutes of Nieszawa, covering a set of privileges for the Polish nobility; an event that is regarded as the birth of the noble democracy in Poland, which lasted until the late-18th-century Partitions of Poland.

The more unique museums include: Motorcycle speedway, basketball and volleyball enjoy the largest following in the metropolitan area.