The club has several departments, including football, basketball, volleyball, handball, water polo, swimming, wrestling, ice hockey, and weightlifting.

The club was founded in April 1926 by Constantinopolitans who fled to Thessaloniki after the Greek defeat in the Greco-Turkish War (see Rum Millet).

The founding members were A. Angelopoulos, A. Athanasiadis, K. Anagnostidis, M. Ventourellis, F. Vyzantinos, V.Karapiperis, A. Dimitriadis, D. Dimitriadis, N. Zoumboulidis, M. Theodosiadis, T. Ioakimopoulos, P. Kalpaktsoglou, T. Kartsambekis, D. Koemtzopoulos, K. Koemtzopoulos, P. Kontopoulos, K. Kritikos, M. Konstantinidis, P. Maleskas, I. Nikolaidis, L. Papadopoulos, F. Samantzopoulos, T. Tsoulkas, M. Tsoulkas, S. Triantafyllidis and T. Triantafyllidis (who was also its first Chairman).

The contract stipulated that the French footballer Raymond Etienne  – of Jewish descent from Pera Club – would be paid 4,000 drachmas per month.

The 1937 team included: Sotiriadis, Vatikis, Goulios, Kontopoulos, Bostantzoglou, Panidis, Glaros, Kritas, Ioannidis, Kalogiannis, Koukoulas, Kosmidis, Apostolou, Vafiadis, Vasiliadis, Anastasiadis, Moschidis, Tzakatzoglou, Zakapidas.

The eagle symbolizes the origins of the club in the former Byzantine capital, Constantinople, and the legacy of the Greek refugees from Asia Minor, Eastern Thrace, Pontus and Caucasus.

[8] The club's traditional colours are black, as sadness for the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1922 and the end of the Greek presence in Anatolia, and white as hope for recovery.

PAOK's traditional fanbase comes from the city of Thessaloniki, where the club is based, as well as from the rest of Macedonia region and Northern Greece.