In the late 19th century, the city was developed to serve the coffee and coal industries, and the Dutch built roads to help ship goods to Singapore and Malacca.

According to the records kept by Imam Suhil Siak, Sultan Muhammad Ali Abdul Jalil Muazamsyah under the rule of Sultan Yahya officially established Senapelan on the 21st of Rajab, Tuesday, in the year 1204 H, corresponding to the 23rd of June 1784 AD, which was later set as the day of Pekanbaru City.

The origin of Pekanbaru was inseparable from the existence of the Siak River as a distributing route for commodities from the Minangkabau Highlands to the Strait of Malacca.

On June 23, 1784, based on the consultative meeting of the Council of Ministers from Sultanate of Siak Sri Indrapura, consisting of four tribal leaders (datuk) of Minangkabau tribes (Pesisir, Lima Puluah, Tanah Datar and Kampar), the area was named Pekanbaru.

During the colonial Dutch East Indies era in the 19th and early 20th century the city remained important, especially as a major trading point: Siak river navigation conditions provide a stable relationship with shipping from the Malacca Strait.

Actual management functions were carried out by representatives of the Dutch colonial administration, i.e., by the post of assistant-resident and controller.

In an effort to strengthen the military and logistical infrastructure in this part of Sumatra, the Japanese started the construction of a 220-kilometer-long railway, connecting Pekanbaru to the coast of Malacca Straits.

6,500 Dutch, mostly Indo-Europeans, and British prisoners of war and over 100,000 Indonesian, mostly Javanese, forced workers called Romusha were put to work by the Japanese army.

By the time the work was completed in August 1945 almost a third of the European POWs and over half of the Indonesian coolies had died.

[13] After Indonesian independence, Pekanbaru was organized as an administrative city in 1956, and was selected to be the capital of the newly formed Riau province in 1959.

After World War II, the number of Minangkabau people migrating to Pekanbaru surged, nearly doubling between the years 1943 and 1961.

[17] In addition to the Minangkabau, the Riau Malays are the second largest ethnic group in Pekanbaru, making up 30% of the population.

The pluralism surrounding the city can be reflected by the variety of religions and freedom of belief among the people in Pekanbaru.

Islam is the majority religion in this city, followed by Christianity (Protestantism and Catholic) as well as Buddhism and small percentage of Hinduism and Confucianism.

For informal use, Pekanbaru people regardless of their ethnicity also generally use Minangkabau language in their economic and daily activities, especially in the market area.

Moreover, many Chinese Indonesians especially from North Sumatra, particularly from Medan as well as West Sumatra region and to a lesser extent the Riau Islands have internally migrated to Pekanbaru due to opportunities and rapid economical growth in the area since the 1990s and 2000s, in which the dialect groups of these internal migrants are from the Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese and Hakka subgroups.

The city is divided into fifteen administrative districts, formerly twelve[18] (Indonesian: kecamatan), tabulated below with their areas since the 2021 re-organisation, and their populations at the 2020 Census[6] and according to the official estimates for mid 2023.

As Pekanbaru is prominently known as a major gateway for tourists from Singapore and Malaysia, the city has become a favourite stop-over for travellers before they go further inland to other regions of Sumatra Island such as Padang and Jambi.

These problems initiated the government of Pekanbaru to come up with plans to solve these matters, especially within 10 to 15 years ahead.

For land transport, Pekanbaru is connected to Padang, Medan, Jambi, Palembang, and other cities or regions in Riau Province and Sumatra Island by the existence of Bandar Raya Payung Sekaki Bus Terminal.

Sultan Syarif Kasim II International Airport serves flights in Pekanbaru from/and to several cities in Indonesia such as Batam, Medan, Bandung, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, and others, and international flights to several countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and Sri Lanka.

Thus, the airport company PT Angkasa Pura II is currently ferrying passengers to and from the terminal using shuttle buses until the aerobridge can be used.

Pekanbaru's airport is also utilized separately as the airbase of the TNI-AU (Indonesian Air Force) and home base of the 12th Squadron, a shelter to some Hawk Mk.109s and Mk.209s.