Settled since the Stone Age, the area was probably inhabited by Germanic Rugians, before the Polabian Slavs moved in during the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries.
In 1945 the eastern part of the island, together with the city and port of Swinemünde (now Świnoujście), was assigned to Poland under border changes promulgated at the Potsdam Conference, and the surviving German inhabitants of the town were expelled to the west.