[4][5] Before European settlers arrived in Young, members of the Burrowmunditory tribe, a family group of the indigenous Wiradjuri Nation, lived in the region.

[8] James White was the first European settler in the district and established 'Burrangong' station in 1826 with a squatting claim of 260 square kilometres (100 sq mi).

In late June 1860 Michael Sheedy from Binalong, and a group of other stockmen, were on James White's 'Burrangong' pastoral run looking for horses.

By late July 1860 word had spread and there were about fifty persons at Lambing Flat who had joined the search for gold.

[7] Later in the 1860s, some Chinese, who remained in the district, ran intensive and successful market gardens, supplying Young and other towns, even as far away as Wagga.

The former Young Shire was acknowledged as the first Local Government Area to institute a rural school bus system in New South Wales.

[7] Young has a number of heritage-listed sites, including: Owing to Young's far western location, it features hot, dry summers and cool, damp winters making for a particularly wide seasonal range characteristic of the South West Slopes region.

Snow falls occasionally, despite its low elevation of roughly 400 metres (1,300 ft) as it lay far west enough to bear the brunt of the cold westerly airmasses.

[20] The breakdown of population in 2016 in the township included 367 people (5.1%) (197 males and 172 females) who identified as being of Indigenous origin.

Chinamans Dam, with an initial capacity of over 9,100 cubic metres (2×10^6 imp gal) when it was in railway use, is situated at a hamlet called Pitstone on Sawpit Gully.

The dam was built in the 1860s by German brothers (from Hannover), Herman and John Tiedemann, to provide water for the sluicing of their Victoria Hill gold claims.

At some time in the 1870s, the brothers sold the area, including the dam, to a Chinese group who worked the site.