Kingston has the distinction of being the oldest community in Canada. The history of Kingston begins back in 1673 when Robert Cavelier de La Salle, on the behalf of the Governor of Nouvelle-France, chose Cataraqui for the building of a fortified trading post of the same name. Soon Fort Cataraqui would be renamed Fort Frontenac.

War erupted between the French and the Iroquois in 1687. Two years later the fort would be abandoned to the Iroquois and destroyed. It wasn’t until 1695 after peaceful relations between the two sides that the fort was reoccupied and rebuilt by the French. The fort remained under French rule for many years.

During these years it was used as a key point in attacks against Iroquois and British forces on various occasions. The fort was captured and destroyed by the British in the Battle of Fort Frontenac near the end of the Seven Years' War in 1758. A receiving centre for fleeing refugees from the American Revolution, it became the primary community of south-eastern Upper Canada.

During the War of 1812, Kingston was the base for the Lake Ontario division of the Great Lakes British naval fleet, which engaged in a vigorous arms race with the American fleet, based at Sackett's Harbor, New York for control of Lake Ontario. After the war, Britain built Fort Henry and a series of distinctive Martello towers to guard the entrance to the Rideau Canal. Fort Henry still stands and is a popular tourist destination.

Kingston's location at the Rideau Canal entrance to Lake Ontario, after canal construction was completed in 1832, made it the primary military and economic centre of Upper Canada. Incorporated as a town in 1838, Kingston had the largest population of any centre in Upper Canada until the 1840s. Kingston was incorporated as a city in 1846

Kingston was one of the contenders for the capital of Canada before Confederation, but after a brief stint as the capital from 1841 to 1844 (including the first meeting of the Parliament of the United Canadas on June 13, 1841, it lost out to an alternating location of Montreal and Toronto, and then later to Ottawa in 1857. Kingston was the home of Canada's first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald.

It was also during the mid 1800s that the Church of Scotland selected Kingston as the Canadian location for a school. Its purpose was to prepare clergy members for service, as well as enlighten others in the subjects of science and literature. What started as a simple facility with one professor and a few students has evolved into the world-renowned Queen’s University.

Thus began the surge of knowledge in Kingston, and brought about the arrival of other institutions such as the Royal Military College of Canada, St. Lawrence College, and the Canadian Armed Forces School of Communications and Electronics. Naturally this has promoted Kingston as a centre for knowledge-based industry.

Several predominant names in health sciences, environmental services and products as well as information technology and telecommunications have research and development facilities in Kingston.
 
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Kingston was an important Great Lakes port and a center for shipbuilding and locomotive building, including the largest locomotive works in the British Empire (the Canadian Locomotive Company - later Fairbanks-Morse - closed in 1969). Most heavy industry has now left the city and employment is now primarily in the institutional, military, and service/retail sectors.

The term "Cataraqui", from the original native name for Kingston, today refers to an area around the intersection of Princess Street and Sydenham Road where a village of that name was located. Cataraqui is also the name of a municipal electoral ward..