[15] In the west, the Kerch Strait separates the krai from the contested Crimean Peninsula, internationally recognised as part of Ukraine but under de facto Russian control.

[15] The southern, seaward part is the western extremity of the Caucasus range, lying within the Crimean Submediterranean forest complex ecoregion;[16] the climate is Mediterranean or, in the southeast, subtropical.

[15] The Black Sea coast stretches from the Kerch Strait to Adler and is shielded by the Caucasus Mountains from the cold northern winds.

[15] The region's earliest known inhabitants are referred to, generally, as the Maiōtai, who are the ancestors of the modern-day Circassians, Abkhazians and Abazins[17] (after the Greek name for the Sea of Azov).

During the 6th century BC, Pontic Greeks founded the area's first cities, such as Phanagoria (near modern Sennoy) and Hermonassa (on the Taman Peninsula), who traded with nomadic tribes including the Skuthai (Scythians) and Sindi.

From the 8th to the 10th centuries, the area was dominated by the Khazars, a Turkic people who had earlier migrated from the east onto the Pontic-Caspian Steppe, where a hypothesis claims that they converted to Judaism.

After the latter's collapse, parts of Kuban were held under the Crimean Khanate, Circassia, and the Ottoman Empire, which dominated the region.

In April 1783, after the liquidation of the Crimean Khanate, right-bank Kuban and Taman Peninsula were annexed to the Russian Empire by decree of Catherine II.

In 1792–1794, the Cossacks moved there from Zaporizhzhia, now located in Ukraine, and formed the Black Sea Area troops, with the creation of a solid cordon line for the Kuban River and the marginalization of the neighboring Circassians.

The administrative region was accorded the status of "Land of Black Sea Cossack Army", with its center in the city of Yekaterinodar (renamed Krasnodar by the Bolsheviks in 1920).

[20] On July 7, 2012, at least 171 people died in Krasnodar Krai, after torrential rains overnight caused the worst flooding and landslides in more than seventy years.

[23] A local police spokesman stated that most of the dead were in Krymsky District, where at least 159 died when a wave of water 5 meters (16 ft) high swept through the town of Krymsk in the middle of the night.

[citation needed] The transport system in the region was said to have collapsed, while oil shipments from Novorossiysk were halted when the port, located in the lower part of the city, was threatened by landslides.

[21][23][24] Russia's President Vladimir Putin flew to the area to hold emergency talks with officials in Krymsk, while authorities in Perm Krai dispatched a rescue team to evacuate dozens of children from the region, who had been staying at summer camps on the Black Sea coast.

[21][24] Residents of Krymsk claimed the wave of water that hit the town resulted from the sluice gates of a nearby reservoir being opened, although the prosecutor general's investigative committee denied this.

In 1991, the CPSU lost power, and the head of the krai administration, and eventually the governor have been since appointed/elected alongside elected regional parliament.

There are direct trains from resort cities like Sochi and Anapa to Moscow, via Krasnodar, which become very popular during the summer vacation season.