After the Meiji restoration, on April 1, 1889, the villages of Iiso, Osu and Niitate were created within Sōma District, Fukushima with the establishment of the modern municipalities system.

[6] Iitate suffered from moderate damage from the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, and was located outside the nominal 30 kilometres (19 miles) radiation exclusion zone of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

However, as a result of wind patterns following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, on 30 March 2011, the International Atomic Energy Agency stated that its operational criteria for evacuation were exceeded in Iitate, despite the village being outside the existing radiation exclusion zone around the plant.

[12] In March 2012, the village was divided into three zones: in the first, people were free to go in and out but not allowed to stay overnight; in the second, access was limited to short visits; and in the third area, all entry was forbidden because of elevated radiation levels that were not expected to go down within five years after the accident.

[13] However, in March 2014, the government postponed lifting of the restrictions on return for a year due to remaining high levels of radiation.

[14][15] The evacuation order was lifted on April 1, 2017, with the exception of a small area in southern Iitate bordering on the neighbouring town of Namiie, which remains a no-entry zone.