In Bronze Age, complex permanent settlement systems and functionally differentiated societies developed in the Pontine region.

The mountains are characterized by small medieval settlements (borghi) and traditionally live of cattle raising and agriculture; however, these activities saw a marked decline in recent times, and today workers usually commute daily to work in Rome or Latina.

Tourism is an increasing interesting resource, attracted especially by the uncontaminated nature and by artistic traces of the Middle Ages (Abbeys of Valvisciolo and Fossanova, where St. Thomas Aquinas died).

Until the 1930s, it was covered by unhealthy marshes, which were dried up under Fascist government; the area as subsequently settled by immigrants coming from north-eastern Italy, in newly built cities like Sabaudia or Latina itself.

The Agro Pontino is the most economically developed part of the province, housing a flourishing agricultural sector and numerous service firms and industries.

Cities rich of ancient and medieval history, Gaeta and Formia were traditionally part of the Kingdom of Naples.

Formia and Gaeta constitutes a single metropolitan area with an important port (with connection to the Pontine Islands), a station on the main railway line Rome-Naples.