The Upper Lusatian territory was previously referred to as Milsko in contemporary chronicles, named after the local West Slavic Milceni tribe, later also called Land Budissin.

However, the highest point of historic Upper Lusatia is the Tafelstein (Tabulový Kámen) in the Polish part, located at 1,123 m (3,684 ft) on the eastern slopes of the Smrk (Smrek) in the Jizera Mountains, the border tripoint of Upper Lusatia with the historical region of Lower Silesia to the east and Bohemia to the south.

In the west, the Pulsnitz at Königsbrück (the "Gate to Upper Lusatia" on the Via Regia trade route) formerly marked the border with the Meissen lands of the Saxon Electorate.

In the 19th century, in the northern part of Upper Lusatia, in the east on both sides of the Neisse river and around Hoyerswerda large quantities of brown coal were found.

Today, Upper Lusatia is grouped into eight natural regions or landscapes:[2] The hunters of the Middle Stone Age (until about 8000 BC) only crossed through the area.

Another significant settlement was on the cliff above the Spree river, where in the course of history Bautzens Ortenburg was built, dominant and administrative center of what would become Upper Lusatia.

As a result, the Milceni lands, despite persistent militant struggles, became part of the vast Marca Geronis under the Saxon margrave Gero and after 965 of the newly established Margraviate of Meissen.

In 1002 Bolesław I Chrobry conquered both Upper and Lower Lusatia and forced German king Henry II to enfeoff him with the Gau Milsca.

During the Investiture Controversy in 1076, King Henry IV of Germany granted Budissin Land to Duke Vratislaus II of Bohemia as an Imperial fief in turn for his support in the Saxon Rebellion.

The Meissen bishop Bruno II from 1213 to 1218 established the college of St. Peter in Bautzen, which was richly endowed by King Ottokar I of Bohemia and his successors; Queen Kunigunde in 1234 donated the Cistercian monastery of St. Marienthal, which was subjected to the Diocese of Prague in 1244, and Bishop Bernhard in 1248 founded the second Cistercian monastery of St. Marienstern in Kuckau/Kukow.

During the reign of the House of Ascania the division of Upper Lusatia into the countries of Bautzen (Budissin) and Görlitz by Margrave Otto IV of Brandenburg in 1268 was the most important event.

The town of Görlitz, centre of the eastern phalf, rapidly gained importance and became economically the strongest city of Upper Lusatia.

After the extinction of the Ascanian dynasty in 1319, the rulers of the neighboring territories, including King John of Bohemia from the mighty House of Luxembourg, claimed Upper Lusatia for themselves.

In 1346 the five royal cities of Upper Lusatia and Zittau, which had fallen to Bohemia upon the death of Duke Henry of Jawor, founded the Lusatian League.

In addition, within the so-called Weichbild enlarged municipal area, they were able to enforce their jurisdiction over large parts of the local nobility and its possessions.

The Hussite Wars eased the links of Upper Lusatia to the Bohemian Crown, and because of the weakness of the kingdom the internal affairs of the margraviate were regulated largely without royal interference.

In 1469 the Upper Lusatian estates even seceded from the Bohemian king George of Poděbrady, because of his utraquist confession, which the Pope had condemned as heretical.

Only a few years after Martin Luther put up The Ninety-Five Theses in Saxon Wittenberg, his Reformative ideas spread all over Upper Lusatia.

In Görlitz, Bautzen and Zittau, the first Protestant sermons were preached in 1520 and 1521, although the nobility, the city councils and King Louis II of Bohemia tried to prevent its spread.

In Görlitz and Bautzen the municipal authorities however soon conceded the pressure of the population and officially adopted the Protestant Reformation in 1523 and 1524, though only in small cautious steps.

Overall, it took decades until the Lutheran doctrine finally prevailed in most parishes, as in Upper Lusatia not the Bohemian sovereign introduced the Reformation but the local city councils and noble lords.

During his only visit in 1537, he received the homage by the estates; however the rule was entrusted to the Bohemian Hofmeister Zdislav Berka of Dubá as Landvogt in Bautzen, who was not able to reach a settlement between the League and the local nobility.

The stance of the nobility was strengthened with the establishment of the Upper Lusatian state countries of Muskau, Seidenberg, Hoyerswerda, and Königsbrück.

King Ferdinand was dependent on support and taxes in the ongoing Ottoman–Habsburg wars and neither could afford to estrange the nobles nor to force back spreading Protestantism.

In turn the estates, unlike the Bohemian utraquists, remained neutral in the Schmalkaldic War of 1546/47 and even arranged troops in support of Ferdinand's brother Emperor Charles V —against the fierce protest of reformer Johannes Bugenhagen.

Furious King Ferdinand ordered the League's representatives to his Bohemian court at Prague, where he sentenced the cities to pay an enormous fine and seized their properties.

The Upper Lusatian territory north of it, i.e. the districts of Hoyerswerda, Rothenburg, Görlitz and Lauban (Lubań), was attached to the Prussian Province of Silesia.

Though this area had never been affiliated with historic Silesia before, it is still referred to as "Silesian Upper Lusatia" (Schlesische Oberlausitz), e.g. by the local body of the Evangelical Church.

During World War II, the Germans operated the Stalag IV-A, Stalag VIII-A and Oflag IV-D prisoner-of-war camps for Polish POWs and civilians, and French, Belgian, British, Australian, New Zealander, Canadian, South African, Italian, Serbian, Soviet, Slovak and American POWs with multiple forced labour subcamps in the region.

[clarification needed] The Polish part of Upper Lusatia is, apart from Zgorzelec, Lubań and Bogatynia, only sparsely populated and the area belongs to an economically weak region of Poland: only the coal-fired power plant in Turów offers a larger number of industrial jobs.