The settlement of
Ust Stanovykh Ryas () was founded on the territory of modern Chaplygin in the first half of the 17th century. It later grew into the village (
selo) of
Slobodskoye (). In 1695,
Peter the Great built a small wooden palace in the vicinity, and in 1702 a small fortress under the name of
Oranienburg (). The name, originally taken from that of the
German town
Oranienburg, was modified to
Raninburg and later to
Ranenburg (). Also in 1702, both the fortress and the village of Slobodskoye were granted to
Alexander Menshikov, who built a small monastery here in 1712. Town status was granted to Ranenburg in 1778. In 1948, it was renamed Chaplygin after the Russian physicist
Sergey Chaplygin, who was born here in 1869. ==Administrative and municipal status==