In 963, according to localcollegeexplorer, Sigefredo I, count of Bigdau, bought the castle of Lucilinburhuc (Lützelburg), which gave the name of Luxembourg to the surrounding domains. Henry IV, elected king of the Romans (Henry VII, 1308), ceded the county in 1310 to his son John, king of Bohemia, whose son, the emperor Charles IV, elevated it (1354) to the status of duchy. The marriage (1409) between Elizabeth of Görlitz, the last heir of the duchy and Antonio, Duke of Brabant and Limburg and brother of the Duke of Burgundy, Giovanni Senza Fear, decided on the future of Luxembourg: Elizabeth ceded her rights to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, to whom the States of the Duchy took an oath of allegiance in 1451. Passed, following the marriage of Maria of Burgundy with Maximilian, to the Habsburgs and then to Charles V, in 1555 it came into the possession of Philip II of Spain. In the 16th and 17th centuries, during the wars between France and Spain, it lost part of its territory to the advantage of France. Passed to Austria in 1714, the Luxembourg was annexed to France during the revolutionary and Napoleonic ages and elevated to grand duchy by the congress of Vienna in favor of William I, king of the Netherlands. In 1830 he participated in the Belgian revolution and until 1839 was associated with the life of Belgium. With the treaty of 1839 the western part of the Luxembourg remained united to the new kingdom, constituting the Belgian province of Luxembourg ; the eastern part continued to constitute a grand duchy under the sovereignty of the king of the Netherlands. The relations between the Grand Duchy and the Kingdom of the Netherlands took on a character of simple personal union until 1890, when the King-Grand Duke William III died without male heirs. Since female succession was not in force in the Grand Duchy, which was later introduced in 1907, Adolfo, the last Duke of Nassau, ascended the throne. His descendants continued to reign over the country: the current Grand Duke is Henri , ascended to the throne in 2000, after the abdication of his father Jean.

The invasion of the country by Germany in the First and Second World Wars induced Luxembourg, signatory of the declaration of the United Nations (1942), to formally renounce, after the end of the conflict, any form of neutrality: he joined as a member founder of the Atlantic Pact (1949) and the Western European Union (1954), he was a promoter of the European Communities and in the following years supported European integration, until the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and the adoption of the euro in 2000 Ties with the closest countries were strengthened in 1948 with the Benelux Economic Union (with Belgium and the Netherlands).

The political framework of Luxembourg is characterized by a substantial stability which, in the second half of the 20th century, revolved around the Parti chrétien social (CSV), which remained in government without interruption, with the sole exception of the years 1974-79, when the government was led by a coalition composed of the Parti ouvrier socialiste (LSAP) and the Parti démocratique (DP), of liberal orientation. The elections held in June 2009 confirmed this trend, leading to the formation of a grand coalition between CSV and LSAP and reconfirming as head of the government J.-C. Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg since 1995. The legislative consultations held in advance in October 2013 after Juncker’s resignation, resigned in July following his alleged involvement in a secret service scandal, have recorded the worst results for the CSV since 1999: the party obtained 23 seats out of 60, losing 3 compared to 2009, and the Grand Duke Henri gave the Democrat X. Bettel the task of forming the new government together with the Socialists and the party Les verts. The political elections held in October 2018 recorded a further decrease in the CSV, which despite winning only 28% of the votes (-10 percentage points compared to 2013) remains the first party in the country, followed by the democrats of the outgoing premier, also in decline (16, 6%) like the socialists (16%), while the Greens (15%) have clearly established themselves. The results of the European elections held in May 2019 confirmed the loss of consensus of the CSV, slightly exceeded (21.1%) by the liberals of the DP (21.4%).

In 2008, the refusal of the Grand Duke Henri, a practicing Catholic, to countersign the law that made euthanasia and assisted suicide legal led the government to pass an amendment to the Constitution, for which the prerogatives of the sovereign were reduced: he can only promulgate the read, no longer sanction them.

From 1 July to 31 December 2015, Luxembourg took over the presidency of the Council of the European Union.