The town was first mentioned in 1280 under the
Latin name
Castrum Novum which translated means 'new fort'. In 1483, the
Battle of Una was fought near the city. It belonged to the
counts of Blagaj, a cadet branch of the
Babonić family, and in the early sixteenth century came under power of
Nikola Zrinski.
Croatian ban Adam Bačan conquered Novi in 1693.
Evliya Çelebi on his journey through
Bosnia mentions that Croatian nobles built Novi Grad. In 1895, during
Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the town was officially given the name Bosanski Novi. At the same time, the city included around 3,300 people with 550 households. Wooden bridges existed across the
Una and
Sana rivers which the citizens had to guard against floods in the autumn and spring. For that reason, a current-day symbol of the town was built in 1906—the Una quay. Upon the conclusion of the
Treaty of Passarowitz in 1718, Novi was to be transferred to the
Habsburg monarchy. In 1872, Novi Grad was the first municipality to have a train station on the new Bosnian railway, which afforded it significant cultural and economic advantages over other
Krajina municipalities. The first hospital was established around the same time. From 1929 to 1941, Bosanski Novi was part of the
Vrbas Banovina of the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia. From 1992 through 1995, the town was ethnically cleansed of its
Bosniak and
Croat inhabitants, thereby rendering it almost completely
Serb-populated. In order to distance the town from its
Bosnian history and its cultural roots and in tune with the war politics, the local Serb government renamed the town to Novi Grad, a change criticized by Croat and Bosniak residents. Consequently, the majority of people from Bosanski Novi were misplaced and live all over
Europe, the
American continent,
Australia and elsewhere around the globe. After the
Bosnian War,
Kostajnica was split from the municipality. ==Settlements==