Šiauliai is referred to by various names in different languages: Samogitian Šiaulē; Latvian Saule (historic) and Šauļi (modern); Polish Szawle [ˈʂavlɛ]; German Schaulen pronounced [ˈʃaʊ̯lən] ⓘ; Belarusian Шаўляй [ʂau̯ˈlʲaj]; Russian Шавли Šavli [ˈʂavlʲɪ] (historic) and Шяуляй Šjauljaj [ʂɐʊˈlʲaj] (modern); Yiddish שאַװל Shavel.

[4][5] The city was first mentioned in written sources as Soule in Livonian Order chronicles describing the Battle of Saule.

After the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, the raids stopped and Šiauliai started to develop as an agricultural settlement.

[6] Šiauliai was granted Magdeburg city rights in the 16th century when it also became an administrative centre of the area.

[6][7] The credit for the city's rebirth goes to Antoni Tyzenhaus (1733–1785) who after a violent revolt of peasants of the Crown properties in Northern Lithuania (so-called in Polish: Powstanie Szawelskie, 1769), started the radical economic and urban reforms.

[citation needed] In 1791 Stanisław August Poniatowski, king of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, confirmed once again that Šiauliai's city rights and granted it a coat of arms which depicted a bear, the symbol of Samogitia, the Eye of Providence, and a red bull, the symbol of the Poniatowski family.

[10] Šiauliai, being in a crossroad of important merchant routes, started to develop as an industrial town.

Modern utilities were also included: streets were lighted and there was public transportation, telephone and telegraph lines, water supply network and sewer.

According to one of the Jewish survivors of Šiauliai, Nesse Godin, some 700 people were shot in nearby woods during the first weeks of occupation after having been forced to dig their own graves.

Šiauliai located in eastern part of the northern plateau, Mūša, Dubysa and Venta River divide.

In 1795, there were 3,700 people living in Šiauliai, rising to 16,128 by 1897, when it was the third-most populous city in Lithuania after Kaunas.

[18] By the outbreak of World War I, 12,000 of the town's inhabitants were Jews, making Šiauliai majority Jewish.

[18] A battlefield during World War I, Šiauliai saw thousands of its Jewish citizens flee, never to return.

According to the 2021 census, the city population was 100,653 people, of which:[19] Beginning in the 19th century, Šiauliai became an industrial centre.

[citation needed] During the Soviet years, the city produced electronics (Nuklonas), mechanical engineering, wood processing, construction industry.

According to 2005 data,[citation needed] the city has: In 2020, construction of Europe's largest aircraft maintenance and repair centre will begin on the territory of Šiauliai International Airport.

The city park to the creation of Anton Tyzenhaus essentially graduated Vladimir Zubov.

The famous Saulės battle took place near a trade route from Riga to Bubiai and Tauragė.In 1836–1858 Riga–Tilsit (Sovetsk) highway was built near it.

Subsequently, to meet the needs of an increasing population, more busses and Taksomotorų Autoūkis were added in 1955.

On July 25, 2007, in preparation for the 37th European men basketball championship, a modern Šiauliai Arena was opened to the public.

About 94% of the city's population consider Lithuanian their native language, 5% are Russian speakers and the remainder speak Ukrainian, Belarusian, Latvian, Roma, Armenian etc.