Antiquity Archaeological remains of a
Chalcolithic settlement have been found at the site of what is now Givatayim.
British Mandate era The modern town was founded on April 2, 1922 by a group of 22 Second Aliyah pioneers led by David Schneiderman. The group purchased 300 dunams () of land on the outskirts of Tel Aviv that became the Borochov Neighbourhood (
Shechunat/Shekhunat Borochov), the first workers' neighbourhood in the country. It was named for
Dov Ber Borochov, founder of the
Poalei Zion workers' party. Later, another 70 families joined the group, receiving smaller plots. The land was purchased with their private savings, but was voluntarily transferred to the
Jewish National Fund, which organized Jewish settlement at the time, in keeping with the pioneers' socialist beliefs. Shechunat Borochov is credited for a number of innovations in the early Jewish settlement movement, including establishing the first cooperative grocery store (
Tzarkhaniya, "Consumer") that still functioned in the same location into the 1980s. Shechunat Rambam was another neighborhood in what is today known as Givatayim. Rambam used to be more "bourgeois" in the eyes of Borochov's founders, who were considered socialists. Thus, the two neighborhoods used to function differently from an economic viewpoint. Over time, more neighborhoods developed: Sheinkin (1936; named after
Menahem Sheinkin), Givat Rambam (1933; named after
Maimonides), Kiryat Yosef (1934; named after
the biblical figure), and Arlozorov (1936; named after
Haim Arlosoroff). All these neighborhoods were merged to form a local council in August 1942. The city was also settled on
Al-Khayriyya in April 1948, a former Palestinian village.
State of Israel Givatayim was declared a city in 1959.{{cite web |title=דבר, 19 נובמבר 1959 — רשמית: גבעתיים - עיר ==Education and culture==