The town is named after Wishaw House, a large manor built in the woods by the South Calder Water.

[4] The house was probably built some time after the sale of the lands of Coltness, Wishaw, Watstein and Stain to the predecessor of Lord Belhaven:[5][6] Hamilton of Uddsten.

[7] It could be a corruption of "Via shaw" meaning "way through the woods", which would make sense as an ancient Roman road was built through the modern town.

[10] In the 1960s, a pagan religious figurine was found in the woods near Netherton, showing that there was some form of settlement near Wishaw before the Christianisation of Scotland, which occurred between 400 and 600 AD.

The site of the original church remains as a ruined burial ground,[12] including an impressive mausoleum to Lord Belhaven.

[13] The churchyard is notably round, similar to those found in Wales and Ireland, suggesting it could have been built on an earlier Celtic temple.

[15] Small fortresses and tower houses were built, and after the Scottish Wars of Independence, the barony was transferred by Robert the Bruce to local lords,[16] however the title lay abandoned by the 20th century.

The Somervilles of Cambusnethan were the principal aristocrats in the area, although sold their land to Sir James Steuart,later Lord Provost of Edinburgh in 1653.

Wishaw House is thought to date back to the 15th century, and appears on Pont's map of Scotland from 1583, as Wisha.

In the 18th century agriculture in the area consisted mainly of growing oats although some wheat and pear trees were cultivated.

[18] Members of the Reformed Presbyterian Church took up the favourable terms of the proprietor to enable them to establish a congregation in Wishaw in 1792.

[23] Wishaw grew dramatically in the 1830s, with railways and gasworks coming to the town, many collieries opening during this time period.

By the time the Caledonian Railway's main line came through Wishaw in 1848 it was a major mining centre fueling an important part of Scotland's industrial heartland.

[24] On 4 September 1855, the town was incorporated with the villages of Coltness and Stewarton to form the Burgh of Wishaw, with a population of approximately 5,000.

[27] Wishaw and its nearby neighbour of Motherwell were once the centre of steel manufacture in Scotland, as both towns were located either side of the former Ravenscraig steelworks which closed in 1992.

The (now-defunct) local firm of R Y Pickering & Co Ltd (later Norbrit-Pickering) built railway rolling stock (especially wagons) and many tramcars for tram systems throughout the UK.

In November 1996, the world's worst recorded outbreak of E. coli O157 occurred in the town, in which 21 people died and around 200 were infected.

2024 labour was voted back in as the main constituency of Motherwell & Wishaw after years of being SNP These days, North Lanarkshire Council suggest that the majority of the biggest employers in the town are supermarkets, with the exceptions of Royal Mail, which has its main Scottish distribution centre at Shieldmuir and the NHS as a result of University Hospital Wishaw.

Wishaw also has the "Caledonian Centre", a shopping complex in the northern suburb of Craigneuk consisting of other national store chains such as Argos, Matalan, B & M, Pets at Home and The Range.

In 2014 work on a new modern housing estate called Ravenwood began on the site of the old Lammermoor Primary school, which was renamed Calderbridge and moved to a new building 600m away.

The town is located in the relatively level Central Belt area; while there are valleys and high moors, there are no hills or summits over 1,640 feet.

Along with its neighbours of Hamilton, Bellshill and Motherwell it had been considered to form part of the Greater Glasgow conurbation, which as of 2019 had a population of around 1,670,000 (around a third of Scotland's total);[33] however, since 2016 Wishaw, Motherwell and Bellshill have been officially considered separate from the Glasgow 'settlement' due to small gaps in the chain of occupied postcodes used to determine a grouping, and instead form their own settlement which itself has the fifth largest population in Scotland at 124,000.

[34] Wishaw lies on two rivers, the Clyde running near Overton and Netherton and its tributary the South Calder Water, further north near Coltness and Newmains.

St. Aidan's High School serves not only Catholic pupils from Wishaw, but nearby towns such as Newmains, Shotts and Carluke.

There is however a junior football team, Wishaw, which plays its home games at Beltane Park, near to the town's sports centre.

The town's municipal sports centre also includes two small swimming pools, badminton and martial arts facilities and gymnastic equipment.

Wishawhill is situated within walking distance from the major places in the town such as the Main Street, the large Tesco Extra superstore and Wishaw General Hospital.

Virtually all of Wishawhill is low density residential housing and flats, with only a Community Center and the Wishaw Ex-Servicemen's Club being the non-residential buildings in the area.

The area used to be host to one Roman Catholic Primary School, St Matthew's, located on Pentland Road, until it was shut down in June 2010 due to councillors voting against their constituents wishes.

The Argyle Line next to Campsie Road passes through the suburb, with passenger services located at Wishaw railway station a mile away.