The population of the town, amounting to some 7,700, nearly triples during the summer, because of the hundreds of tourists who mainly come from Florence, Milan, Germany, and Russia.

The city contains a gate built in a former bog, a historical artifact that relates to strategic planning by the ancient Roman army.

The army managed to overcome the people of Liguria in the 2nd century BC, under the skillful command of the proconsuls Publius Cornelius Cethegus and Marcus Baebius Tamphilus.

Vaiana is mentioned in a document from 794 AD that registers the sale of a piece of land then called "Vaiano", where it was later discovered that there were springs that contributed to the waterlogging of the nearby countrysides.

In the mid-17th century, the Medici government decided to divert the flow of the river Versilia, to avoid the flooding of the town of Pietrasanta.

In 1833 the Grand Ducal Government asked engineer Giovanni Franchi to reconstruct the Ponte delle Tavole (The bridge was destroyed in 1944, during the nazi invasion of Italy.

The touristic development at the beginning of the 20th century led to the birth of a city committee that asked for the detachment from Pietrasanta and planned on joining the town of Serravezza or on affirming its own independence.

With the political support of Giovanni Montauti from Lucca, sponsored by the counts Siemens-Schuckert who owned most of the territory, Forte dei Marmi declared its autonomy as a separate comune on 26 April 1914.

Tourism in Forte dei Marmi started at the end of the 18th century when the rich families of the inland went to the coast to breathe healthy air and to sandbathe.

At the beginning of the 19th century, many wealthy families from Tuscany and the north of Italy started to choose this town for their summer holidays.

The first ones were Agnelli, Siemens, Giovanni Gentile, Thomas Mann, Renato Fucini, Italo Balbo, Curzio Malaparte, Enrico Pea, Aldous Huxley, Guglielmo Marconi, the writer Riccardo Bacchelli, the sculptor Henry Moore, Luchino Visconti and many Italian noble families.

The foreign tourists came from Germany, Russia, Great Britain, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland and the USA (ISTAT data).