[4] The oldest Slavonic documents use an "Arghiș" form, which might suggest a Cuman or Pecheneg etymology, from the root arghiš ("higher ground", "heights").

[4] One of the oldest towns in Wallachia, Curtea de Argeș was the capital of a small local state which was the start for the unification of the lands south of the Carpathians.

The next year, a conflict broke out between the two and in 1330, Charles I organized an expedition against the "unfaithful" Basarab and destroyed the Argeș stronghold.

[7] The united country's first modern king, Carol I of Romania renovated the Curtea de Argeș Monastery and designated it as a royal necropolis in 1886.

King Carol I also built a railway linking Curtea de Argeș to Bucharest; the city's railway station, designed by architect André Lecomte du Noüy [ro] and constructed by engineer Elie Radu in 1898, stands out as one of the distinctive architectural masterpieces of the city.

As a mayor, Mihail Ștefănesu Goangă oversaw the building of the city's first paved roads, post office, and central market.

During the 1990s, most of the communist-era industries closed down, but Curtea de Argeș remains a manufacturing center for textiles and high-end fashion.

In 1381, the Latin Diocese of Argeș was founded as then-only Catholic bishopric in Wallachia, suffragan of the Hungarian Metropolitan Archdiocese of Kalocsa.

[7] However, at the close of the 18th century, it again became the seat of the modern Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese of Argeș and Muscel, under the Metropolis of Wallachia and Dobrudja.

The city is the site of several medieval churches (among them the Curtea de Argeș Cathedral) having been an Orthodox bishopric again since the close of the 18th century.