Like many other Central Asian places in the sixth and seventh-centuries, Fergana was ruled by the Western Turkic Khaganate.

[3] The city of Fergana was refounded in 1876 as a garrison town and colonial appendage to Margilan (22 kilometres or 13+1⁄2 miles to the northwest) by the Russian Empire.

Excavations of the Great Fergana Canal have played an important role in the study of archaeological monuments in the region.

During the excavation of the canal, monuments from the Bronze Age, slavery and land ownership were discovered and studied.

The monuments found in the settlements of the Chust culture, engaged in sedentary agriculture and animal husbandry, are important for the study of the Fergana Valley.

Archaeological excavations show that the Fergana Region has long been inhabited by people engaged in hunting, farming, animal husbandry, and at later stages of the existence of human society, culture began to develop.

In 1924, after the Soviet Union's reconquest of the region from the Basmachi movement, the name was changed to Fergana, after the province of which it was the centre.

[4] During World War I, the city was the location of a Russian prisoner-of-war camp for German and Austro-Hungarian POWs, including ethnic Polish conscripts, many of whom died to typhus.

The Great Fergana Canal, built almost entirely by hand during the 1930s, passes through the northern part of the city and was completed in 1939.

With a western loan Fergana is able to modernize its refinery and also reduce air pollution[7] emissions.