Salantai area was known to be inhabited since the Bronze Age - 1st millennium BC.

In 1750 forty Catholic homes or homesteads (kiemas) were counted.

[1] Aleksandras Bendikas, the Lithuanian book carrier and publisher settled in Salantai and since 1905 started to publish a calendar for the farmers Traveler, leaving to Samogitia and Lithuania (Keleivis, išeinąs į Žemaičius ir Lietuvą).

A parson, canon Pranas Urbonavičius established a consumers' co-operative Kaukas in 1905, in 1906 opened a Lithuanian primary school for girls supported by the Saulė Society, and in 1906–1911 built church (archit.

During the summer of 1941, 95 Jews of the city were massacred in a mass execution by Nazis and their local collaborators in the nearby forest.