There is much evidence of the presence of prehistoric human settlements (Paleolithic and Neolithic) in the area. But the foundation of the inhabited nucleus in the place of the current country is later.

The origin of Rodi Garganico has often been linked to the expansionist movement of the Rhodians (for others of the Argives), people of Greek ethnicity that in the eighth century B.C. colonized the coast attracted by climate and pine forests. It is the same people who founded, according to the interpretation of Strabo, the city of Elpie (or Salapia). This interpretation, due to the lack of relevant archaeological documentation, is however rather uncertain.

According to several illustrious sources, including Cellarius, Theodor Mommsen and Michelangelo Manicone, Rodi Garganico, instead, would sink its roots in the Daunian culture, and then may have been rebuilt on the ruins of the mythical Uria (or Veretum according to the Manicone), destroyed after the Punic Wars, a thesis opposite to that of Michelangelo De Grazia that describes simultaneously Rhodes and Uria.

Pliny, finally, mentions a Portus Garnae that historians identify with the port of Rodi Garganico, whose ruins were visible until the beginning of the last century in Cala del Castello, under the Rione Cambomilla. An epigraph suggests that Rodi Garganico in Roman times was a province administered by the Comite Gneo Suilio Mascillioni, magistrate and tax collector.

In Sotto il Castello you can still see the defensive walls of the port of Rodi Garganico, which were once quite imposing and which, gradually, were transformed into houses. A trap door carved into the cliff, then, allowed access to a room on whose lintel you could read the Latin inscription Tabularium (archive), where probably was recorded the commercial and mercantile activity of Rodi Garganico.

With the fall of Rome followed difficult times: Rodi Garganico was destroyed by the Goths in 485 AD, rebuilt in 553 after the Greco-Gothic war and attacked by the Saracens in 950.

Like Carpino, it was occupied in 1461 by the Aragonese. In 1446, in fact, it was already a fief of Alfonso V of Aragon.

Rhodes experienced a new period of splendor from the sixteenth century thanks to the production of citrus fruit, whose industry involved almost entirely the citizens. This involvement is evident in time also through local religiosity. The "protection" of the saints was considered as a fundamental element for a fruitful agriculture: since the seventeenth century the Rhodians were in the front row, on the feast of Valentine’s Day (protector of citrus groves) during the long February procession to the Carmine hill (Vico del Gargano to bless plants and fruits of oranges and lemons.

The choice of the saint came after discussions and pilgrimages in search of a patron whose feast took place in the winter season, the most critical period for orange crops. It is said that a delegation of inhabitants from Rhodes and Vico came on pilgrimage to the catacomb that kept the busts of the holy martyrs, when the head of the delegation, bumped the protruding arm of Saint Valentine: it was a providential and decisive sign for the choice. On 10 February 1618 the Archbishop of Manfredonia approved the choice and four days later the bones of the saint arrived from Rome in the Mother Church of Vico, giving rise to the traditional procession of 14 February, still followed and shared by Rhodians and Vikings.

In 1815 Rodi Garganico hosted, at the "Tower of the King", Joachim Murat, who stayed here between the second fall of Napoleon and the proclamation of Rimini.

In the last century, during the Fascist period, it experienced a period of moderate economic development thanks to the construction of the Gargano railway. Immediately after the Second World War, however, the citrus trade, the main economic activity of the city, stopped because of the international political situation that limited its trade flows: In fact, it was no longer possible to trade with the opposite coasts of Dalmatia, the main destination of Rodin’s exports.

Today the town, despite having maintained the citrus production -in a framework of development oriented to the enhancement of the typicality of the various agricultural, gastronomic and agritourism-, has developed mainly its tourist-receptive vocation. Already a popular seaside resort in the sixties, it has undergone important processes of restoration of the architectural heritage and urban redevelopment put in place by municipal administrations that have occurred in the last decade; Finally, the recent construction of a marina has given it an interesting role in the Mediterranean tourist circuit.