The word "Dharwad" means a place of rest in a long travel or a small habitation. For centuries, Dharwad acted as a gateway between Malenaadu(western mountains) and Bayalu seeme (plains) and it became a resting place for the travelers. Another theory is, during VijayaNagara rule of Dharwad, there was a ruler by name "Dharav" (1403 AD) and Dharwad got its name from him. There are some inscriptions that refer to Dharwad as KampaNa Sthana.
The inscriptions found near Durga Devi temple, in Narendra( a village near by) and RLS high school date back to 12th century and have references to Dharwad. This proves that Dharwad existed in 12th century and it is now at least 900 years old!!!!..


Chalukyas ruled Dharwad during 12th century. A stone inscription indicates that there was ruler by the name BhaskaraDeva in 1117 AD. Later Dharwad became a part of the Vijayanagara empire. After then fall of the Vijayanagara empire(1453 AD), Bijapur's Adil Shah captured Dharwad and built a fort. The fort area was called MannaKille, and later Nazratabad. With this fort , the strategic importance of Dharwad increased and it thus became part of everyone's empire, Auranjeb, Shivaji ,Auranjeb's son Mu Azam, Peshwe Balaji Rao, Hidar Ali, Tipu Sultan and finally British.
During early 19th century , when British were expanding their kingdom , they faced lot of opposition from local rulers.To mention two of them, Baba Saheb of Naragund and Kittur Rani Chennamma.
Dharwad was peaceful for much part of late the 19th century. During those times, the British started English Medium school in Dharwad in 1848 and in 1856, started town municipality. Later in 1863, the Bassel Mission organization started another school. In 1867 British opened another school, Varmal school, which later on became known as Training college. In 1883, the municipality area included Sidapur, Lakamanhalli, Haveri Pete, Bagtalan, Madihal, Galaganjikop, Malapur, Kamalapur, Narayanpur, Saptapur, Atti kolla and Hosayellapur. The British government also established the Railway station in 1888.