It was included in the empire of the Mauryas, Sungas, Satavahanas and Vakatakas. Pravarapura, modern Pavnar, was once the capital of the Vakataka dynasty. Vakatakas were contemporary of Imperial Guptas. Prabhavatigupta, the daughter of Chandragupta II (Vikramaditya), was married with Vakataka ruler Rudrasena. The period of Vakatakas was 2nd to 5th century CE. The empire stretched from the Arabian sea in the west to the Bay of Bengal in the east, and from the Narmada river in the north to the Krishna-Godavari delta in south.
Later on, Wardha was ruled by the Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas, Yadavas, the Delhi Sultanate, the Bahamani Sultanate, Muslim ruler of Berar, Gonds and Marathas. Raja Buland Shaha of Gonds, Raghuji of Bhonsale were the prominent rulers in the Medieval period.
During the 1850s Wardha, (then a part of Nagpur) fell into the hands of British. They included Wardha in the Central Provenance.
Wardha is a sister city for Sevagram, and both were used as major centers for the Indian Independence Movement, especially as headquarters for an annual meet of the Indian National Congress in 1934, and Mahatma Gandhi's Ashram.
The existing Wardha district was part of Nagpur district till 1862. Further it was separated for convenient administrative purposes and Kawatha near Pulgaon was the district headquarters. In 1866, the district head quarter moved at Palakwadi village. The huts in village were destroyed and new city was constructed by English town-planner Sir Bachlor and Crawdok. This new city was given name "Wardha". In Wardha district there is a village called Pavanar where Acharya Vinoba Bhave lived
