In the Middle Ages, it was a dominant center of the ethnic German (and since 16th century also Italian) citizens of Prague.

[citation needed] It also housed many noble palaces while the right-bank towns were comparatively more bourgeois and more Bohemian Czech.

Originally, when it was founded in 1257, the district was called the New Town beneath Prague Castle (Czech: Nové Město pod Pražským hradem).

It was created by amalgamating a number of settlements beneath the Prague Castle into a single administrative unit.

Baroque architecture eventually dominated when the style was implanted on Malá Strana after the destructive fires in 1541.