The name Kulai 龟来 (pinyin: Guīlái), which means turtles are coming, was a Chinese mispronounciation of Pulai.

Chinese Hakka peoples led by a man named Huang Guo Mao emigrated to Johor from Qing China during the late 19th century and opened a settlement in the area, and had renamed the place after the influx of turtles coming to the area after heavy flooding.

The earliest settlement in Kulai is located at Sayong River, now at Bandar Tenggara, which have existed since the Srivijayan era.

The Orang Asli settlement at the upstream of Sayong River was the hometown to the Malay Singaporean folklore hero Badang.

List of Kulai district representatives in the State Legislative Assembly (Dewan Undangan Negeri)

The government proposed to open a new road, Kulai-Senai Bypass, to resolve the traffic jam problem of the Skudai Highway.

Kulai was an important stopover on the Johor Bahru-Kuala Lumpur trunk road in the 1970s and 1980s until the North–South Expressway (NSE) E2 opened in 1994, which bypassed the town.

Senai North Interchange (NSE)253 is the connection to Singapore (from the east to the west).NSE is also one of the access points to the Mount Pulai nature reserve.