The township was named after Benjamin Vaughan, a British commissioner who signed a peace treaty with the United States in 1783.

The Skandatut ancestral Wendat village overlooked the east branch of the Humber River (Pine Valley Drive) and was once home to approximately 2,000 Huron in the sixteenth century.

However, it was not until townships were created in 1792 that Vaughan began to see European settlements, as it was considered to be extremely remote and the lack of roads through the region made travel difficult.

The first people to arrive were mainly Pennsylvania Germans, with a smaller number of families of English descent and a group of French Royalists.

Among the facilities established by this group were a number of hamlets, the oldest of which was Thornhill, where a sawmill was erected in 1801, a grist mill in 1815, and had a population of 300 by 1836.

Other such enclaves included Kleinburg, Coleraine, Rupertville[6](Maple), Richmond Hill, Teston, Claireville, Pine Grove, Carrville, Patterson, Burlington, Concord, Edgeley, Fisherville, Elder's Mills, Elgin Mills, Jefferson, Nashville, Purpleville, Richvale, Sherwood, Langstaff, Vellore, and Burwick (Woodbridge).

It incorporated parts of present-day Dufferin Street north of Eglinton Avenue in Toronto, though all that remains of it today is the separate alignment farther south, running through the eastern half of the former City of York.

[13] North American telephone customers placing calls to Vaughan may not recognize the charge details on their billings.

In the municipal election on November 13, 2006, Di Biase was narrowly defeated by Linda Jackson, who was sworn in as mayor on December 4, 2006.

On June 18, 2008, an audit of Jackson's 2006 campaign finances found that the politician exceeded her legal spending limit of $120,419 by at least $12,356, or 10 per cent.

The auditors, LECG Canada Ltd., say that amount could almost double if what they believed to be unreported contributions in kind at various election events but couldn't prove are later verified.

On June 24, 2008, Vaughan Council voted unanimously to hire a special prosecutor to consider laying charges against Mayor Linda Jackson under the Municipal Elections Act in reaction to the auditors' report.

This exposed 27 contraventions under the Elections Act, along with a $155,000 anonymous cash payment made to his lawyer to cover his legal fees.

On 24 October 2022, former Ontario Liberal Party leader Steven Del Duca was elected mayor; he assumed office on November 15, 2022.

This includes corporations such as Bell Canada, which uses the original community rate centres and lists them separately in the phone book, resulting in local calling areas being different throughout the city.

This commitment became policy in 1998 when Official Plan Amendment 500 called for the Vaughan Corporate Centre, as it was then branded, to become a focal point for business activity and major commercial development.

[29] It is part of a regional hospital system with a "single governance, administration and medical staff"[27] managed by Mackenzie Health.

Each of Spanish, Persian, Cantonese, Urdu, Punjabi, Hebrew, Tagalog (Filipino), Vietnamese, Portuguese, and Korean have a percentage ranging from 2.9% to 1.3%, signifying Vaughan's high linguistic diversity.

[41] Notable incidents include mob shootings outside the Terrace Banquet Hall in July 2013 resulting in two deaths, one of which was mobster Salvatore Calautti[42] and the Regina Sports Café in April 2014 resulting in the death of Carmine Verduci,[43] as well as the Woodbridge Cafe shooting at Islington Avenue and Highway 7 in June 2015.

[46] In April 2017, Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua spoke after the third March murder, stating people "should not live in fear".

[50] The charges laid included tax evasion, money laundering, defrauding the government and participating in a criminal organization.

[51] The investigation was motivated by a series of violent incidents in Vaughan in 2017 according to CBC News, "including an attempted murder, drive-by shootings and arsons".

The charges laid included tax evasion, money laundering, defrauding the government and participating in a criminal organization.

It also served as the United Federation of Planets building and Office of the President in the season 1 finale of Star Trek: Discovery.

[73] The Ontario branch of Niagara University opened a 12,000 square foot facility at Expo City in downtown Vaughan.

With a real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $20.6 billion in 2018, it is the largest contributor (35%) to York Region's economy.

In 2018, the Accommodation and Food Services industry accounted for $295 million of Vaughan's real gross domestic product.

In 1895, Roland Orr recognized the classic ecological features favoured by the Iroquoian people for their villages: floodplains along a river, an easily defensible plateau and nearby forests.

Since 1975, more than a million artifacts were discovered and nineteen longhouses were excavated revealing that the village was occupied by the Iroquois from c. 1500 - 1550 AD.

[76][77] The award is meant to recognize people in the categories of: accessibility, arts and entertainment, athletics, business, education, environment and spirituality, equity and diversity, health and wellness, media and communications, not-for-profit, philanthropy, public service, and science and technology.