The Kongeå, however, passes no port or market town of any significance, and small boats use the Ribe Å.

In the Middle Ages it was called Skodborg Å after the royal castle Skodborghus, where a track crossed the watercourse south of Vejen.

[3] For centuries a customs border near the Kongeå separated the Kingdom of Denmark from the duchy of Schleswig.

[2] The Kongeå is mentioned (as "Skotborg river") in the Heimskringla[4] in a description of the 1043 battle in which King Magnus I of Norway and Denmark defeated at Lyrskov Hede (Hlyrskog Heath) a large army of Slavs who had invaded southern Denmark from the current Mecklenburg region in retaliation for a Viking attack on Jomsborg, which at the time was the Slavic kingdom's primary town on Wolin island.

The area around the river is the site of several preserved burial mounds that have been the subject of archeological study, including Skelhøj.