The region gets its name from the Longobards, who dominated the region from the 6th century to the 8th century B.C. Lombardy is made up of the capital Milanand by the provinces of Pavia, Varese, Lodi, Bergamo, Lecco, Como, Cremona, Sondrio, Mantova and Brescia.

The region was surely inhabited during the Palaeolithic Age. In the Neolithic Age the Liguri inhabited some areas of the region.
In the 5th century , Lombardy was invaded by the Gauls, and in the 3rd century B.C. it was conquered by the Romans. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the region was invaded by the Ostrogoths then by the Longobards, who made the city of Pavia their capital. It is from this occupation that the region gets its name Longobardia (that then became Lombardia).

The political, cultural, social and economic formation and accomplishments of the region are due to the birth of the various communes and then to the seignorities that were established throughout the entire region (the region today includes 1546 communes). Milan slowly became the principle centre of development for the entire region under the Visconti family and then under the Sforza family.
The Visconti family, during the 19th century, dominated over most of Piedmont, Liguria, Emilia and Tuscany. The Dukedom of Milan, though, started to gradually loose its territories during the 16th and 17th centuries and therefore was subdued to Spanish domination. This political situation gave the writer Alessandro Manzoni inspiration for his famous novel The Betrothed.
In the 19th century the region was overcome by Austrian domination and, after the short Napoleonic period of the Cisalpina republic, and after the Congress of Vienna (1815) it established, together with Venice, the Venitia-Longobard Reign still, though, remaining under the Autrian domination.

Finally in 1859, the region was annexed to the Reign of Sardinia, therefore to Italy, after the second Italian war of independence, in 1859.