In one of the Danish chronicles of 1219 it is mentioned that a damaged ship of King Valdemar II the Victorious was set ashore on an "Island of Hel".

In 1440, the town joined the anti-Teutonic Prussian Confederation, upon the request of which the area was re-incorporated by King Casimir IV Jagiellon into the Kingdom of Poland in 1454.

In 1526 King Sigismund I the Old withdrew all privileges previously granted to Hel and sold the town and the peninsula to the city authorities of Gdańsk.

In 1872 the government of the newly formed German Empire abolished the town rights granted to Hel six centuries previously[citation needed].

[citation needed] During the invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, the Hel Peninsula was one of the longest-defended pockets of Polish Army resistance.

Approximately 3,000 soldiers of the Coastal Defence Group (Grupa Obrony Wybrzeża) units under Kmdr Włodzimierz Steyer defended the area until 2 October 1939.

Shortly before capitulation, Polish military engineers detonated a number of torpedo warheads, which separated the peninsula from the mainland transforming it into an island.

At the end of the war the village was the last part of Polish soil to be liberated: the German units encircled there only surrendered on 14 May 1945, six days after Germany had capitulated.

[citation needed] The harbour now serves primarily as a yacht marina, though there are some fishing boats and ferries to Gdańsk, Sopot and Gdynia in the summer.

[citation needed] Hel houses a sea life biological laboratory and there are interesting examples of naval armament and equipment exhibited throughout the town.

[citation needed] The most easterly edge of Hel, which was once a military territory, can now be accessed by the general public making it possible to walk all the way around the peninsula.