[citation needed] Muğla was apparently a minor settlement in classical antiquity, a halfway-point along the passage between the Carian cities of Idrias (later Stratonicea) to the north and Idyma (modern Akyaka) to the southwest on the coast.

[citation needed] In 2018, archaeologists unearthed a 2,300 year-old rock sepulchre of an ancient Greek boxer named Diagoras of Rhodes, on a hill in the Turgut village, Muğla province, Marmaris.

[8] Under Roman and then Byzantine rule, the town's name gradually changed to Mogolla (Μογωλᾶ, Mogōlâ) and then Mugla (Μούγλα, Moúgla; Turkish: Muğla).

It is surrounded by steep slopes denuded of soil, paved with calcerous geology, and a scrub cover which gives the immediate vicinity of Muğla a barren appearance uncharacteristic of its region.

[citation needed] Its former profile as a predominantly rural, difficult to access, isolated and underpopulated region enclosed by a rugged mountainous complex is now coming to an end.

The city which retains its old neighborhoods, not having succumbed to the mid-20th century boom in concrete reconstruction, but displays a progressive mind as exemplified by the pride still expressed at having had Turkey's first female provincial governor in the 1990s, Lale Aytaman.

Therefore, tourism in Muğla is a great opportunity for local community employment, and its fertile soil and amenable climate provide a variety of products for people working in the agricultural sector.

Highest recorded temperature:42.1 °C (107.8 °F) on 27 July 2007Lowest recorded temperature:−12.6 °C (9.3 °F) on 4 January 1942[9] Due to the particularity of its location, commanding a large part of Anatolia's southwestern coast and a number of busy district centers, Muğla is also notable by the large number of people who, short of being natives in the strict sense, had associations of one sort or another with the city, including among its small Greek minority until the 1923 Population exchange between Greece and Turkey.

Sights of interest in the city include: The old quarter of Muğla – on the slopes and around Saburhane Square (Meydanı), consisting of about four hundred registered old houses dating from the 18th and 19th centuries, many of which are restored.

In Turkey's 2004 local elections, Dr. Osman Gürün (CHP) was re-elected, increasing his votes to 43.28%, aided in this by the abrupt virtual collapse of the other center-left party the DSP.