Being the oldest recorded city in Slovenia, it has been inhabited since the late Stone Age and developed from a Roman military fort, located at a strategically important crossing of the Drava River along a prehistoric trade route between the Baltic Sea and the Adriatic.

Between 874 and 890 Ptuj gradually came under the influence of the Archbishopric of Salzburg which had both spiritual and temporal rule over the town;[3] city rights passed in 1376 began an economic upswing for the settlement.

After the re-establishment of the Habsburg rule in 1490, following Matthias Corvinus's conquests, the Archbishop of Salzburg was stripped of the remaining temporal authority over the town and the surrounding areas; Ptuj (known in German as Pettau) was officially incorporated into the Duchy of Styria in 1555.

[3] Its population and importance began to decline in the 19th century, however, after the completion of the Vienna-Trieste route of the Austrian Southern Railway, as the line went through Marburg (Maribor) instead.

After the military intervention of the Slovenian general Rudolf Maister, the entire territory of Lower Styria was included into the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (Yugoslavia).

Their homes were taken over by German speakers from South Tyrol and Gottschee County, who had themselves been evicted according to an agreement between Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

Kurent or Korant is a figure dressed in sheep skin who goes about the town wearing a mask, a long red tongue, cowbells, and multi-colored ribbons on its head.