Named after the cumin seed, the island has a permanent population of only two residents and is part of the municipality of Għajnsielem, in southeastern Gozo, from where one priest and one policeman commute.

The island has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports fifty to eighty breeding pairs of yelkouan shearwaters.

[3] Formerly called Ephaestia (Ἡφαιστεία in Ancient Greek),[4][5] Comino is known to have been inhabited by farmers during Roman times, but for long periods in its history it has been sparsely populated, privately owned, or abandoned entirely.

[6] Its rugged coastline is delineated by sheer limestone cliffs, and dotted with deep caves which were popular with pirates and marauders in the Middle Ages.

The Knights were fiercely protective of the local game, which consisted of wild boar and hares (Maltese: fenek tal-grixti): upon conviction, poachers were liable to a penalty of three years as a galley slave.

[11] On 6 March 1889 the British battleship HMS Sultan grounded on an uncharted rock in the Comino Channel, ripping her bottom open.

Its background dates back to 1416, when the Maltese petitioned their king, Alfonso V of Aragon, to build a tower on Comino to serve as an early warning system in case of invasion, and to deter marauding Turks, pirates, smugglers and corsairs from using Comino as a hiding place and staging ground for devastating sorties onto the sister islands of Malta and Gozo.

[19] Finally, in 1618 the Knights of Malta under Grandmaster Wignacourt erected St Mary's Tower (Maltese: it-Torri ta' Santa Marija), located roughly in the center of the southern coast of the island.

The earliest record of a chapel on this site dates back to the 12th century, and can be seen in a navigational map of the period, located in the National Maritime Museum and Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London.

[23] In the past, and well into the 20th century, whenever the seas were too rough for the Gozitan priest to make the crossing to Comino for the celebration of Holy Mass, the local community would gather on the rocks at a part of the Island known as Tal-Ħmara, and gaze across the channel towards the Chapel of Our Lady of the Rocks (Maltese: il-Madonna tal-Blat), in Ħondoq ir-Rummien, Gozo, where Mass was being celebrated.

Saint Mary's Redoubt, an additional defensive structure, was also constructed in 1716 on the northern coast of Comino, however it was subsequently demolished.

Frequented by large numbers of tourists and tour boats daily, the Blue Lagoon is a picturesque bay with a white sandy base and rich marine life.

Despite regulations, at least seven illegal kiosks have sprung up on the coastline; none of them has a permit from the Malta Tourism Authority, and they are permanently parked on the spot, while they should be left on wheels and removed every day.

[31] Operators have also started deploying deckchairs and umbrellas in the Blue Lagoon sandy beach as early as 7 AM, filling up all public space.

[34] Pleasure and Leisure Ltd, one of the companies running daily ferries to Comino under the brand Oh Yeah Malta, is owned by the father and uncles of Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo from nearby Mellieħa.

[36] The Labour Party organising secretary, architect William Lewis, also applied to install a wooden walkway over the garrigue terrain leading to the kiosks and the Blue Lagoon; a permit is pending.

[36] Malta's Moviment Graffitti has denounced the overdevelopment and touristification, also conducting direct actions to remove the illegal deck-chairs and umbrellas in June and August 2022.

[38][31] Graffitti called for a master plan for Comino that would limit activity on the island as well as set defined areas for operators.