Hakha was founded in around 1400 CE by the Lai ethnic group. The area was ruled by local chiefs for many generations and consisted of more than 600 houses when British troops arrived in 1889. The British occupied Hakha beginning on 19 January 1890, as part of their operation to "subdue the wild tribes" in the
Arakan Hills Division, as the area was then called. The
British government later established a sub-divisional office and Hakha became incorporated as a town a few years later. The first American Baptist missionary couple, Arthur Carson (1860-1908) and his wife Laura (1858-1942), arrived in Hakha in 1899 and opened a mission station. Other missionaries later joined them and did extensive mission work throughout the Chin Hills, converting most of northern Chin State to Christianity within a century. During the Second World War, Hakha was captured by Japanese troops on 11 November 1943; it was later recaptured by British troops. When
Burma gained independence from British control in 1948, Hakha became an important city as the center of one of the subdivisions in the Chin Special Division, of which
Falam was the capital at that time. The Chin Special Division was abolished and reformed as Chin State in 1974, at which time Hakha became its capital. That brought an influx of government workers, and housing development and extension of the city. Hakha eventually became the largest city in the Chin State with about 20,000 people. Hakha became part of the newly formed
Hakha District on 1 June 2012. ==Geography and climate==