Bochum dates from the 9th century, when Charlemagne set up a royal court at the junction of two important trade routes.

It was first officially mentioned in 1041 as Cofbuokheim in a document of the archbishops of Cologne. In 1321, Count Engelbert II von der Marck granted Bochum a town charter, but the town remained insignificant until the 19th century, when the coal mining and steel industries emerged in the Ruhr area, leading to the growth of the entire region.

In the early 19th century it was part of the Grand Duchy of Berg, a client state of France, then it passed to Prussia following the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, and in 1871 it became part of the German Empire.

During World War II, its center was nearly completely destroyed, which provided the opportunity to rebuild the city after the war in a metropolitan way with wide streets and modern buildings.

With the end of the coal boom in the 1960s, a structural transformation began. Bochum got the first university of the Ruhr Area, which was opened in 1965.