Before the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC, Celtic tribes inhabited the territory of present-day Vojvodina region.

The Slavs (Severans, Abodrites, Braničevci and Timočani) settled today's Vojvodina during the early medieval migrations.

The descendant of Glad was Ahtum, another local duke of Banat, the last ruler who opposed to the establishment of the Kingdom of Hungary in the 11th century.

The important local Bulgaro-Slavic duke was also Sermon, a vassal of the Bulgarian emperor Samuil, who ruled over Srem in the 11th century.

During the rule of the Hungarian king Coloman (1095–1116), the local Serb nobles in Bačka were Uroš, Vukan and Pavle.

By 1483, according to a Hungarian source, as much as half of the population of the Vojvodina territory of the Kingdom of Hungary at the time consisted of Serbs.

A letter of King Matthias from 12 January 1483 mentions that 200,000 Serbs had settled the Hungarian kingdom in the last four years.

[10] Soon after the Battle of Mohač, Jovan Nenad, a leader of the Serb mercenaries, established his rule in Bačka, northern Banat and a small part of Srem.

Taking advantage of the extremely confused military and political situation, the Hungarian noblemen from the region joined forces against him and defeated the Serbian troops in the summer of 1527.

The majority of those who left in the region were Serbs, mainly now engaging either in farming either in Ottoman military service.

The Serbian patriarch, Arsenije III Čarnojević, fearing the revenge of the Turks, immigrated in the last decade of the 17th century to the Habsburg monarchy with as many as 36,000 families, but these Serbs mostly went further to the north and settled in the territory of what is now Republic of Hungary with only small part of them settling in the territory of present-day north-western Vojvodina.

However, because of this event, the Habsburg Emperor promised religious freedom to all Serbs in the Monarchy as well as the right to elect their own "vojvoda" (military and civil governor).

During the Kuruc War (1703–1711) of Francis II Rakoczi, the territory of present-day Vojvodina was a battlefield between Hungarian rebels and local Serbs who fought on the side of the Habsburg Emperor.

Darvas, the prime military commander of the Hungarian rebels, which fought against Serbs in Bačka, wrote: "We burned all large places of Rascia, on the both banks of the rivers Danube and Tisa".

Serbs, however, remained the single largest ethnic group in Vojvodina, until the second half of 20th century, when they became the absolute majority.

The Serbian gymnasiums of Novi Sad and Sremski Karlovci were at the time considered to be among the best in the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary.

The metropolitan of Sremski Karlovci, Josif Rajačić, was elected patriarch, while Stevan Šupljikac the first Voivode (duke).

Since the Austrian court turned against the Hungarians in the later stage of revolution, the feudal and clerical circles of Serbian Voivodship formed an alliance with Austria and became a tool of the Viennese government.

Serbian troops from the Voivodship then joined the Habsburg army and helped in crushing the revolution in the Kingdom of Hungary.

An Austrian governor seated in Temišvar ruled the area, and the title of voivod (duke) belonged to the emperor himself.

The full title of the emperor was "Grand Voivod of the Voivodship of Serbia" (German: Großwoiwode der Woiwodschaft Serbien).

Unlike Banat and Bačka, the Srem region was in 1860 incorporated into the Kingdom of Slavonia, another separate Habsburg crown land.

[citation needed] At the end of World War I, the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed, and the Serbs in Vojvodina gained another opportunity to achieve their political demands.

[citation needed] The Axis occupation ended in 1944 and the autonomous province of Vojvodina (incorporating Srem, Banat and Bačka) was formed within Yugoslavia in 1945 as a part of Serbia.