[2] It was constructed by Dorman Long Engineering Limited, the company that was also responsible for building the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932, with piling works by Gammon Messrs (Malaya) Ltd. Its cost was estimated to be £820,000 in 1956.

[1] The bridge was completed in 1960 and officially opened in 1961 by Almarhum Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah in conjunction with his coronation as the ninth Sultan of Selangor.

In the 1990s, due to the high capacity traffic with the upgrading of the Federal Highway Route (Klang - Kuala Lumpur) into six lane carriageway toll highway, a further bridge was constructed directly next to Kota Bridge from 1991 to 1993.

[citation needed] The bridge has been used a film location for the Malaysian production Sangkar as well as for commercials.

An attempt to have the bridge gazetted as a national heritage site was launched in 2019.