In the south are the plains of the Indravati River, which forms much of the border with Koraput district, while the easternmost boundary close to Rayagada is in the Eastern Ghats.

Kharavela, who led a Kalinga resurgence, mentioned the territory as Vidyadhara and used troops for the region in his conquests.

In the 4th or 5th century CE the Nala dynasty, with their headquarters in Pushkari near Umerkote, took control of the entire Bastar-Koraput region.

Nala power was briefly restored by Skanda Varman, who rebuilt Pushkari, but was soon swept away by the Chalukyas.

At this time the Chindaka Naga dynasty, attested to in the Errakote inscription, established its rule in the region starting in 945.

The modern district of Nabarangpur was under the territory of the Suryavanshi kings of Jeypore, who were previously feudatories of the Gajapatis starting in the 15 century CE until the dissolution of the princely state in 1951.

When the Gajapatis collapsed in 1541 following the death of Prataparudra Deva, Vishwanath Dev, ruler of Nandapur and a former feudal lord of Pratap Rudra conquered a large territory that touched Bengal in the north to river Godavari in the south and stretched up to Visakhapatanam in the east till the kingdom of Bastar in the west.

On 24 August 1942, a crowd of people assembled in Dabugaon to launch a procession to decide the next stage of the freedom movement.

At the flooded Turi River near Papadahandi, the police lathi-charged and fired on the demonstrators, killing 19, injuring 100 and arresting 140.

As part of this, the undivided Koraput district, which was known as the Jeypore Zamindari, was divided into 10 anchals, 3 of which were Nabarangpur, Borigumma and Umerkote.