The Romans made Nora the capital of Corsica and Sardinia for a short time, before giving the title to the nearby Caralis (modern Cagliari).

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Nora, like many other Sardinian coastal cities, suffered continuous raids from the Vandals and later the Saracens, and eventually ceased to exist from about the 8th century AD.

Modern Pula appeared during the Middle Ages as a village called Padulis de Nura or Nora Marsh, which was part of the Giudicato of Cagliari.

The Giovanni Patroni Civic Museum, located on Corso Vittorio Emanuele in the heart of Pula, houses relics discovered during archaeological excavations of Nora.

On the Piazza del Popolo is the Villa Santa Maria, designed by Gaetano Cima in the first half of the 19th century, and built on the ruins of an ancient church of the same name.

The tourist village of Santa Margherita di Pula, now a frazione of the comune, initially grew around a church dedicated to the Holy Martyr.

Pula is home to Polaris, the Science and Technology Park of Sardinia, a multidisciplinary research center that focuses on biomedicine, data fusion, energy and environment, and the information society.