The first residents of ancient Ladakh are thought to be a mixture of nomadic herdsmen from the Tibetan plateau and a small group of early Buddhist refugees from northern India called the monks. Sometimes in the fifth or sixth century, these two groups were accompanied by the Dards, tribes of Indo-Aryan origin who migrated Southeast alongside the Indus Valley, bringing with them the idea of irrigation and settled agriculture. Dards, Tibetans, and possibly other races too, met and mingled, and with the progression of time these communities immingled to form a new community with its own characteristics. In most of the parts of central and eastern Ladakh, Tibetan traits were predominant, culturally as well as racially. The process must have continued down the centuries, since Ladakh was criss-crossed by trade routes, along which journeyed caravans composed of representatives of many of the ethnic groups of south and central Asia.

The religion of Ladakh`s earliest inhabitants was presumably some form of the Bon-chos. The religion was basically pantheistic and shamanistic, and perhaps including a form of ancestor worship. Buddhism first entered in Ladakh, from Kashmir in the first or second century AD. As per the political history rescued from the Kharosthi inscription of Uvima Kavthisa discovered near the K`a-la-rtse Bridge on the Indus, Ladakh was the a part of the Kushana Empire during this period, around 1st century. Later in the 8th century, Ladakh was involved in a clash between Tibetan expansion pressing from the East, and Chinese influence wielding from Central Asia through the passes. In 634/5 Zanzun acknowledge Tibetan suzernaity for the first time, and in 653 a Tibetan commissioner (mnan) was appointed there. In 662, regular administration was introduced and this was the time for an unsuccessful rebellion that broke out in 677. A census was conducted in 719 and further in 724 the administration was reorganized. An attack was postulated by the Tibetans in 737 against the king of Bru-za (Gilgit). The king asked for Chinese help, but was ultimately forced to pay homage to Tibet. The hold of Tibet was untied by the campaign of General Kao Hsien-chih in 747. The general tried to re-open the direct communications between Central Asia and Kashmir for betterment. The diminution of Chinese influence occurred rapidly with the recommencement of the Tibetan influence after Hsien-chih`s defeat against the Qarluqs and Arabs on the Talas River in 751. After the collapse of the Tibetan monarchy in 842, Tibetan suzerainty vanished quickly.

The first independent kingdom in Ladakh was established in the ninth century by the Maverick nobleman Nyima Gon who took advantage of chaos, after the collapse of Guge Empire of western Tibet. Trade links with Tibet resumed in the eighteenth century but it never regained its former status. It experienced feuds and assassinations and subsequently it had to face terminal decline, and it became an easy target for the Dogra General Zorawar Singh to conquer it. After annexing it, he presented it to the Maharaja of Kashmir in 1834. The Ladakhi royal family was banished to Stok Palace, where their descendants reside to this day.

In 1948, Ladakh became a part of independent India. Today, Ladakh comprises around seventy percent of the state of Jammu and Kashmir as it stands. Stimulated by the competition for urban jobs, land quarrels and fighting in Kashmir, relations between the Muslims and Buddhists in this region have turned into very intense difficulty. Long dissatisfied with the state government based in Srinagar, and after years of agitation, the Ladakhis finally saw the establishment in their region of an Autonomous Hill Development Council in September, 1995.

The threat of nuclear exchange with Pakistan in the spring of 2002, led to a sharp fall in tourism in Ladakh. More recently, however, a change of government in Delhi, resulted in new talks with Pakistan over Kashmir, and the initiation of an Indo-Pak bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad in 2005, has altered the scenario in contemporary India.