The origins of the current Ertzaintza can be traced back to the old municipal militias, which were popular organizations at the service of local bodies, created to satisfy the need for public safety.

Once the urgencies of the war were overcome, the Spanish government attempted to recover the functions carried out by these regional forces and transfer them to the Civil Guard, which was created in 1844.

On October 1, 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, the Basque Statute of Autonomy come into force, leading to the establishment of an autonomous government with actual authority over the provinces of Biscay and Guipuzcoa.

When the war on the Basque front concluded, the Ertzaña was dissolved, and Franco's Nationalist regime pretended that this institution had never existed in the first place.

However, since at the outbreak of the civil war Alava and Navarre had thrown their lot in with the Nationalists, the Miñones and Miqueletes continued on duty, with assignments such as traffic patrols and custody of the regional institutions.

Previously, a Royal Decree re-established the "Forales" and the "Miqueletes" in Biscay and Guipuzcoa and gave a new configuration to the "Miñones" corps in Alava.

This new police force, made up of Basque citizens, developed in an organized manner from 1982, and was progressively deployed starting from the countryside towards the cities.

[4] Ertzaintza is not accepted by the Basque nationalist parties ETA and Batasuna, who deride it as zipaioak, or sepoys, an indigenous force serving the colonial power.

[12][13] Ertzaña was a Basque neologism from eŕi ("people") and zañ ("guard") created by the Nationalist poet Esteban Urkiaga Lauaxeta.

The Basque pop group Hertzainak ("The policemen") chose their name prior to the re-establishment of the corps and applied the modern spelling rules.