[4] The Zipser Germans were previously native to the Szepes County (German: Zips; Slovak: Spiš, Hungarian: Szepes) of Upper Hungary—today mostly north-eastern Slovakia—as that region was settled by colonists from present-day central Germany (and other parts of contemporary Germany) during the High Middle Ages, more specifically beginning in the mid 12th century, as part of the Ostsiedlung.

[5] Beginning in at least the 18th century, many members of this German ethnic sub-group migrated to southern Bukovina,[6][7] Maramureș, Transylvania, and in the mountainous Banat (all of the aforementioned regions situated in contemporary Romania).

[12][13] As in the cases of other historical regions from Central and Eastern Europe, this migration of German settlers at the invitation of local kings (known as Ostsiedlung in German historiography) from several Central-Eastern European countries had the main goal to enrich the local medieval communities with more trade and urbanization as well as to fortify them in the wake of the Mongol invasion (as did the Transylvanian Saxons in Transylvania, another former region of the Kingdom of Hungary during the Middle Ages).

[15] In the passing of time, as in the case of other local communities in Central-Eastern Europe colonized with ethnic Germans during the Middle Ages, these newly arrived German settlers became the dominant class and the majority ethnic group in the towns and villages they had either founded or re-populated (as other settlements were previously founded by Slovaks).

As in the case of the Transylvanian Saxons in Transylvania (another Central-Eastern European historical region which previously belonged to the medieval Kingdom of Hungary), the Zipser Germans founded imposing castles and fortified urban settlements.

[17] To this day, sparse Zipser German communities still reside in southern Bukovina and northern Transylvania, in Maramureș/Maramureș County more specifically, where they are also officially represented at political and administrative level (albeit only to a lesser extent) after the latest Romanian locations which were held in September 2020.

Therefore, the main localities still populated by Zipser Germans in Maramureș County according to the 2011 Romanian census are the following ones, both urban settlements (a town and a municipality): In general, all the more with respect to Maramureș and Bucovina, the Zipser Germans were mainly: Thus, from a historical point of view, their societies are mostly characterised by the rural character of their traditional occupations over the passing of time.

Once, the Zipser Germans had a significant and sizeable demographic presence in Czechoslovakia and subsequently also in Slovakia, but their numbers have been constantly decreasing over the years well into the 21st century.