[3] The municipality's history dates back to before the beginning of Spanish colonization, and its city center is home to a number of beautiful historic Art Deco buildings including the palatial Morales Ruins which soar over the road entering Libmanan proper.

German ethnographer Fedor Jagor described visiting Libmanan in his 1875 work "Travels in the Philippines", wherein he visited the local parish priest and learned from him about an ancient human settlement that had been dug up in 1851 during road construction in the Poro area of the southwest close near the Tres Marias islands: the excavation consisted of "numerous remains of the early inhabitants—skulls, ribs, bones of men and animals, a child’s thighbone inserted in a spiral of brass wire, several stags’ horns, beautifully-formed dishes and vessels, some of them painted, probably of Chinese origin; striped bracelets, of a soft, gypseous, copper-red rock, gleaming as if they were varnished; small copper knives, but no iron utensils; and several broad flat stones bored through the middle; besides a wedge of petrified wood, embedded in a cleft branch of a tree.

[6] This railway was damaged severely during World War II, but partially restored using American funds thereafter, providing transportation service down the Bicol Peninsula off and on until ending in 2012 despite plans to rehabilitate the route.

Friar Mariano Roldan for his parents, and was eventually sold to the Morales family whose name the ruins now bear.

It is noted for art deco frescos which are emblematic of the period in which it was built, one of which includes a defiantly displayed Filipino national flag, which would have been disallowed by the American and Japanese occupiers of the time.

[citation needed] This generous production of rice is attributed to the fertile soil and the town's abundant water supply.

In 1991 the area's irrigation canals (shared with its northern neighbor Cabusao, Camarines Sur) were sufficient to water 2996 hectares of land during the dry season.

Continuing on towards the coast from the hills, the municipality becomes truly mountainous beginning in Barangay Malinao beyond the Pan-Philippine Highway, where the "Boro-Boro Spring Resort" is located; a series of waterfalls that are a locally popular swimming destination.

The road leading to Poblacion and other major baranggays is marked by a memorial for the Ten Outstanding Young Men trophy awarded to a past mayor and local hero, Jose Bulaong.

The religious needs of its people and those of neighboring towns prompted the erection of the Prelature of Libmanan in 1990 and installation the first bishop, Msgr.

Barangays of Bahao, Mambulo Nuevo, San Isidro, Bahay and Sibujo act as rural financial centers.