Over time, the town has grown into a suburb of Aarhus to the north east, connected by the urban areas of Stilling, Hørning and Hasselager.

Skanderborg is an old town and the area have revealed traces of human settlements, dating from the earliest Nordic Stone Age.

A seasonal camp from the Ertebølle culture, was found here in the 1930s for example, near the former Ringkloster (English: Ring Abbey) on the southern brinks of Skanderborg Lake.

The Cistercians eventually felt too isolated on the small isle of Kalvø, often cut off from the mainland for days and weeks even when the weather was harsh, and after just four years, they gave up here, too, and moved to Rye between Mossø and Gudensø, a few kilometres west of Skanderborg.

Founded at some point in the early Middle Ages around 1200, King Frederik II had the old medieval castle radically rebuilt and expanded around 1570.

[7] In the years of 1717–22, King Frederik IV began demolishing the old original medieval structures and replaced the former fortifications with terraced gardens.

Commoner Hans Lauritzen bought the royal property for the sum of 3004 Rigsdaler, while the castle church with furnishings and bells was granted to the town of Skanderborg.

The cultural centre of Kulturhuset, located in Byparken (the city park) in the center of Skanderborg, was designed by native architectural firm Kjær & Richter and built in 1998.

Surrounding the buildings, are a Greek theatre with 500 seats, a playground and a beach volley field, amongst other facilities, as the city park itself is perceived as part of the cultural centre.

The German Luftwaffe built their Danish headquarters here and one of the bunkers later found use as the command centre for the civil defence agency during the Cold War era.

The lake has an irregular shape divided into two larger lake-areas known as Hylke and Store Sø respectively, with a total surface area of 8.6 square kilometers.

Every summer in June, Skanderborg also hosts a musical festival targeted specifically for people suffering from arrested development.