After a long history as an important salmon fishing area for Native Americans, Renton was first settled by people of European descent in the 1860s.

Today, Renton is best known as the final assembly point for the Boeing 737 family of commercial airplanes, but it is also home to a growing number of well-known manufacturing, technology, and healthcare organizations, including Boeing Commercial Airplanes Division, Paccar, Kaiser Permanente, Providence Health & Services, UW Medicine, and Wizards of the Coast.

Renton was incorporated as a city on September 6, 1901,[7] when coal mining and timber processing were the most important economic industries in the area.

[10] The population sharply increased during World War II when Boeing built their Renton Factory to produce the B-29 Superfortress.

Owing to its location at the confluence of three major freeways (I-5, I-405, and SR 167), Renton's economic development team has lured a number of specialty retailers that draw consumers from around the region, including IKEA.

[15] The former Longacres horse-racing track was redeveloped in the 1990s to support offices for Boeing and the Federal Reserve Bank, which moved from its Seattle building.

[17] In the mid-1990s, Renton undertook a major redevelopment effort to revitalize its downtown core, which had declined in commercial prominence since the opening of the Southcenter Mall in Tukwila in 1968.

The many car dealerships that had previously occupied the center of downtown Renton were encouraged through economic incentives to relocate to a newly created auto sales zone close to the I-405/SR-167 interchange.

[18] In place of the old dealerships downtown, a new transit center and parking garage were built in partnership with King County Metro.

[19] The transit center is surrounded by several multi-family residential buildings and a small town square named Piazza Park, which hosts a weekly farmers' market.

[20] Centered on former Boeing Co. property near the south shore of Lake Washington is a 68-acre (280,000 m2) residential and commercial development named The Landing.

[22] In 2017, Bosa Development announced plans to build five residential towers between 16 and 23 stories at Quendall Terminals, a Superfund site in Renton on the shore of Lake Washington.

The terrain then elevates south of May Valley to the communities of the East Renton Plateau before descending to the north bank of the Cedar River.

Renton has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen: Csb) with warm and dry summers mixed with cloudy, wet and cool winters, with a precipitation regime typical of the Pacific Northwest.

Being located in a partial rain shadow and shielded from the coastal summers, Renton has more of a climate influenced by the interior than many other areas nearby.

[40] The Boeing Renton Factory has operated since World War II, when it manufactured the B-29 Superfortress; currently, it produces the 737 airliner.

Paccar has traditionally been a large employer in the city as well with its Kenworth Truck plant located in Renton's industrial area on the south end of Lake Washington.

In the second half of the 20th century there was not enough repeat business for Paccar-built train cars as rail equipment in 1965 came to only 1/3 of the company's sales.

[41] As of 2022[42] the top employers in the city are: Renton Technical College, originally opened in 1942 as a war production school, offers associate degrees and certificates of completion in professional-technical fields.

The Kent School District[45] serves the majority of Fairwood, a census-designated place between Renton and Maple Valley.

[53] The BNSF Railway operates a freight railroad through Renton that includes a brief street-running portion on Houser Way in downtown.

[56] A second line with street-running portions, along Burnett Avenue to serve the Paccar plant, was removed in 1972 to eliminate 18 grade crossings.