The name Kovel comes from a Slavonic word for blacksmith hence the horseshoe on the town's
coat of arms. The
rune-inscribed
Spearhead of Kovel was found near Kovel in 1858. It dates to the early 3rd century, when
Gothic tribes lived in the area. Kovel (Kowel) was first mentioned in 1310. It received its town charter from the Polish King
Sigismund I the Old in 1518. After the
Third Partition of Poland, in 1795, the town fell into the
Russian Empire for over a hundred years. During the First World War, the city was a site of the
Battle of Kowel between the
Central Powers and the
Russian Empire. During the
Polish–Soviet War, on September 12, 1920, it was the site of a battle between the Poles and Russians. The Poles won the battle, capturing a large amount of weapons and military equipment, including two armored trains and 26 cannons. Subsequently, in 1941
Operation Barbarossa the Germans having conquered the town on 28 June 1941 murdered 18,000 Jews in Kovel, mostly during August and September 1942. The Germans operated the Stalag 301
POW camp, a subcamp of the Stalag 360 POW camp and a Dulag transit POW camp in the town. About 8,000 Jews were murdered in the forest near Bakhiv on 19 August 1942 during the liquidation of the Kovel ghetto, established on 25 May 1942. Jewish victims were driven by train from Kovel to Bakhiv where pits were dug close to the railroads. Actually there were two ghettos, one within the city and another in the suburbs of Pyaski. Both ghettos had 24,000 Jews, including many refugees. The Jews from both ghettos were executed at different places and at different time. The Jewish community ceased to exist. In March and April 1944 during the Soviet
Polesskoe offensive, Kovel was a site of fierce fighting between the
5th SS Panzer Division Wiking and the
Red Army. During the
massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, the town was a shelter for ethnic Poles, escaping the massacres. In that period, Ukrainian nationalists murdered approximately 3,700 Polish inhabitants of Kovel county. In early spring 1944, the
27th Infantry Division of the
Home Army operated in the area. Kovel was captured by the
Red Army on 6 July 1944. In 1945, the
Big Three, Great Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union,
established new borders for Poland; the
Polish population was forcibly resettled and Kovel was incorporated into the
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. It has been a part of sovereign Ukraine since 1991. In October 2022, the city of
Chamblee, Georgia, signed a Partnership Agreement with the Ukrainian city of Kovel, in Volyn Oblast. Kovel, Ukraine, became
Chamblee's first sister city. That same month,
Chamblee Mayor Brian Mock personally visited Kovel,
Ukraine. ==Geography==