Inhabited since ancient times, the city area nurtured paddy field agriculture in the fertile Nara Basin since its pre-history. Large keyhole type burial "kofun" mounds were constructed in the northwestern part of the city around the 5th century.
With the introduction of Western civilisation into Japan, a modern spinning factory was set up in Yamato Takada at the end of the nineteenth century. Since then, the city became a center of the modern textile industry. After the Second World War, Takada was designated as a city in 1948. In 1963, the city of Yamatotakada established, through the arrangement of an Australian Catholic father, a sister-city relationship with Lismore in NSW, Australia. It is known as the first such relationship between the two countries.
Yamato Takada is served by the Kintetsu Osaka line, Minami Osaka line, and JR Wakayama line.
