[11] In the vicinity of the city ancient towns of Pella and Kyrros and medieval metropolitan centre of Giannitsa were presented.

[12] Though there was probably a pre-existing Byzantine castle in the vicinity, the importance of the city of Giannitsa begins with its foundation by Gazi Evrenos in around 1383 – 1387.

[15] As learned people such as students, scholars and literati often frequented Vardar Yenicesi, it soon became the site of a flourishing Persianate linguistic and literary culture.

[15] The 16th-century Ottoman Aşık Çelebi (died 1572), who hailed from Prizren in modern-day Kosovo, was galvanized by the abundant Persian-speaking and Persian-writing communities of Vardar Yenicesi, and he referred to the city as a "hotbed of Persian".

Penelope Delta's novel Secrets of the Swamp (referring to the shores of Giannitsa Lake) is a romanticised account of this from the Greek point of view.

[16] Giannitsa "retained its emphatically Turkish character up to 1912" and members of the Evrenos family lived in the city in a large palace in the center of town until then.

According to oral testimony on November 13, 1943, the Germans arrested around 50 people, whom they transferred to the camp of Pavlos Melas at Thessaloniki and they killed thirteen.

On 5 August 1944, the Austrian soldier Otmar Dorne left the German occupation army and joined the 30th Constitution of the E.L.A.S, based in Mount Paiko.

[22] Giannitsa was an important center in the Ottoman period, and several important monuments survive, such as the Tombs of Gazi Evrenos (built in 1417) and Gazi Ahmed Bey, the Kaifoun Baths, the Great Mosque, the Army Mosque, the hammam of Evrenos, and the Clock Tower, built from 1667 to 1668 by the Ottomans.

(The choice of location was made with military criteria because they wanted to control the commercial activity that took place across the city and throughout central Macedonia.)

[17] Points of interest include also the Cathedral Church of Giannitsa (achieved in 1860), the Neoclassical Multicenter, the Filippeio tourist center, the Macedonian tombs, and the prehistoric settlement of Archontiko.

The draining of the Lake Giannitsà left fertile soil for agriculture, leading to population growth in the region.

[citation needed] The focus of the social life of the city is at the central pedestrian street, where people gather to eat and drink or to take a walk.

Also various theatrical and musical events take place in a closed theater located internally of the Cultural Centre which has a modern architecture.

There is a motocross track northwest of the city, in the foothills of Mount Paiko, where local, Greek, and European races are run.