San Pedro was established during the Conquest of Chile first as fort la Candelaria which was destroyed following the death of Governor Martín García Óñez de Loyola in 1599.

During the Chilean War of Independence the town was burned in 1821, by the royalist Juan Manuel Picó on the order of Vicente Benavides during the Battle of San Pedro.

According to the 2002 census of the National Statistics Institute, San Pedro de la Paz spans an area of 112.5 km2 (43 sq mi) and has 80,447 inhabitants (38,571 men and 41,876 women).

[3] As a commune, San Pedro de la Paz is a third-level administrative division of Chile administered by a municipal council, headed by an alcalde who is directly elected every four years.

The commune is represented in the Senate by Alejandro Navarro Brain (MAS) and Hosain Sabag Castillo (PDC) as part of the 12th senatorial constituency (Biobío-Cordillera).