It serves as the administrative headquarters of the Vadodara district and is situated on the banks of the Vishwamitri River, 141 km (88 mi) from the state capital of Gandhinagar.

The city is prominent for landmarks such as the Laxmi Vilas Palace, which served as the residence of the Maratha royal Gaekwad dynasty that ruled over Baroda State.

At Akota, now a suburb of Vadodara, excavations have found rich microlith deposits, providing early evidence of habitation in the area.

A huge hoard of Jain bronzes, largely dating from this period, was found at Akota's old site, indicating that the city was a centre of Jainism.

It records Karka Suvarṇavasha, second ruler of the Lata branch of the Rashtrakutas, giving the village of Vaḍapadraka, in the province of Aṅkoṭṭaka and identified with present-day Vadodara, to a Brahmin from Valabhi.

A plate dated to 1077 mentions a battle on the bank of the Vishvamitri river in the vishaya of Vaṭapadraka, which had evidently replaced the earlier province of Aṅkoṭṭaka.

[11]: 85–6 A manuscript of the Panchavastuka written at Vadodara in 1123 indicates that the province of Lāṭa was then governed by Santūka, a minister of the Chaulukya king Jayasimha Siddharaja.

At some point, the minister Tejpal, returning from a victory at Godhra, stopped at Vadodara for several days and renovated the local shrine of Parshvanatha.

[11]: 86 Under the Delhi Sultanate, Vadodara was home to a group of Afghan amirs known collectively as the Amir-i Sadgan, or "the nobles of the hundred", because each one commanded a force of 100 cavalry.

They went on to occupy a large territory stretching from Kadi in the north to Bharuch in the south, and from Khambhat in the west to the hill country in the east.

In 1345, Muhammad bin Tughluq led an army to Gujarat to put down the rebellion and, after initially camping at Pandu Mewas, defeated them in battle at Bharuch.

[11]: 87–9 Muzaffar Shah I, founder of the Gujarat Sultanate, appointed his son Firuz Khan as governor of Vadodara at some point.

Ultimately, the rebellion dissipated without a pitched battle: internal tensions had already arisen among Firuz Khan's main allies, and when Ahmad Shah offered them amnesty in return for standing down, they readily complied.

There was an administrative reform under Akbar's reign, and Raja Todar Mal conducted a land survey of parts of Gujarat.

The power business, mid- and downstream Hydrocarbon, L&T Technology Services, and the engineering joint venture L&T-Sargent & Lundy operate out of the facility.

[31]: 651 [32]: 44 In 1963, construction began on Gujarat Refinery outside of Vadodara, on a 1800-acre tract surrounded by the villages of Koyali, Ranoli, Karachia, and Dhanora.

Crude was piped in from Ankleshwar and from northern Gujarat (around Kalol and Vadagam), and condensate was also supplied from the Khambhat gas fields.

In March 1979,[33] IPCL also formally commissioned a major petrochemical complex at Vadodara that included an aromatics plant (producing dimethyl terephthalate and two types of xylene),[11]: 337  an oil refinery, and seven other downstream facilities.

[33] The 7 downstream facilities were: 1. acrylonitrile, 2. synthetic rubber, 3. low-density polyethylene, 4. polypropylene, 5. ethylene glycol, 6. detergent alkylate, and 7. acrylic fibre.

The highest body of power in the municipal corporation is the General Board, which is composed of elected members from each ward within the VMC.

[49][50] Rajendrabhai Trivedi is the BJP MLA and incumbent 14th Speaker of Gujarat Legislative Assembly, who was unanimously elected on 9 February 2018.

[51] Jitendra Sukhadia is the Minister of Tourism, Non-resident Gujarati division as well as the Food, Civil Supplies, and Consumer Affairs.

The engineering department manages infrastructure and services provided through cells or subdepartments such as bridge cell, drainage project, town development, streetlight, electrical sewerage, mechanical sewerage, building project, solid-waste management, road, storm-water drainage, water work, land, and estate.

During the mid-late 70s early 80s, development on the city's outskirts focused on building cheap, low-income housing for industrial workers.

[32]: 45  Farmland was purchased from nearby villages to provide space for these new developments, which caused a large drop in cultivated acreage and overall agricultural produce in the area.

Economically Weaker Section (EWS) housing and slums are located especially on the northwest, northeast, and east sides of the city.

[61] In January 2019, VUDA and GWSSB joined hands to reduce the acute shortage of drinking water for residential societies near close to the Vadodara city.

[69] Hydroelectricity is additionally being generated by water from Sardar Sarovar Dam with six units of river bed power houses of 200 megawatt each.

[72][73][74][75][76] Vadodara was part of the historic Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway (BBCI), which arrived in the city in January 1861.

Higher Education Institutions across various disciplines attract international students mainly from the African countries such as Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, South Africa, and Kenya.