[4] Henry George Raverty theorized that the word Nangarhar is derived from the Pashto term nang-nahar ("nine streams"), which appears in some Persian chronicles.

However, according to S. H. Hodivala, the name of the province derives from the Sanskrit term Nagarahara, which appears in a 9th-century inscription discovered at Ghosrawa in present-day Bihar, India.

Seleucus is said to have reached a peace treaty with Chandragupta by giving control of the territory south of the Hindu Kush to the Mauryas upon intermarriage and 500 elephants.

Song Yun, a Chinese monk who visited Nangarhar in 520 AD, claimed that the people in the area were Buddhists.

[8][9][10] It later fell to the Ghorids followed by the Khaljis, Lodhis and the Moghuals, until finally becoming part of Ahmad Shah Durrani's Afghan Empire in 1747.

Some fighting took place during the 1919 Third Anglo-Afghan War between the Afghan army that were led by King Amanullah Khan and British-Indians near the Durand Line border areas.

He ultimately escaped to Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he was killed in a night raid by members of SEAL Team Six in 2011.

After the removal of the Taliban government and the formation of the Karzai administration in late 2001, U.S.-led Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) gradually established authority across the province.

The Haqqani Network and militants loyal to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province (ISIL-KP) are often blamed for the attacks, which sometimes include major suicide bombings.

On 13 April 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a targeted strike on ISIL-KP by use of the second largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal at the time.

The intended target was ISIL militants hiding inside tunnels, most of whom came "from Bangladesh, Russia, India and other countries.

The strong agricultural base, coupled with the crucial trade route connecting Kabul with Peshawar, makes Nangarhar one of the more economically diverse and functional provinces of Afghanistan.

The Kabul–Jalalabad Road runs throughout the province, linking Kabul with Jalalabad and extending east through Khyber Pass to Peshawar.

De Spinghar Bazan is a regional team in the Roshan Afghan Premier League based in Jalalabad.