Panna district was created in 1950, shortly after Indian independence, from the territory of several former princely states of British India, including the states of Panna, Jaso, most of Ajaigarh, and a portion of Paldeo.

Panna National Park is a major tourist attraction in the district.

[3] In 2006 the Ministry of Panchayati Raj named Panna one of the country's 250 most backward districts (out of a total of 640).

It ranks 41st out of 45 districts in human development index (HDI) in Madhya Pradesh.

[14] Among Panna's languages is Bundeli, which has a lexical similarity of 72–91% with Hindi and is spoken by about 3 million people in Bagelkhand.