The city is mentioned several times in novels written by Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

There are three different hypotheses about its origin, all of them related to the exploration of the area of the mouth of a river in the middle part of the La Guajira Peninsula.

The first hypothesis recounts the rescue that a young indigenous man makes of a lost and thirsty Spanish battalion, guiding them towards the encounter with the river; as a reward, the captain gives the native an axe and baptizes the place as El Río de La Hacha.

The second hypothesis speaks of the same Spanish battalion whose Captain loses his emblematic axe when crossing said river; as a consolation he baptizes it Río de La Hacha.

The third hypothesis documents the discovery of a beautiful axe buried on the river bank by a battalion of European explorers, who until now believed they were the first to arrive at that place.

The city is also known as Portal de Perlas (alluding to its pearl origin), the Capital of the Magical Arreboles (the most beautiful sunsets in the Colombian Caribbean) and the Mestiza del Nordeste (for its rich multiculturalism and the Trade Winds of the Northeast).

The Riohacha area was long inhabited by American Indians of the Wayuu culture, part of the larger Arawak group.

Many Riohachans also served in the revolutionary navy, most notably Admiral José Prudencio Padilla, who would come to be considered a hero in the revolutions of Colombia and Venezuela.