It is informally referred to as Three Station Square[c] after the three rail termini situated there: Leningradsky, Yaroslavsky, and Kazansky.

These stations connect Moscow with Saint Petersburg, northwestern Russia, the Volga region, and Siberia via the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Until 1909, a railway line leading to Kursky Rail Terminal traversed the square; it is now elevated so as not to interfere with street traffic.

The square received its present name, in the honour of the Komsomol (Communist Union of Youth) members, in 1932.

A Stalinist skyscraper of the Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya Hotel and a Neoclassical vestibule of the Komsomolskaya-Koltsevaya metro station were completed in the early 1950s.