San Pedro sula was founded on June 27, 1536, by Pedro de Alvarado with the name Villa de San Pedro de Puerto Caballos, close to the town of Choloma. There was only 18 towns the where populated in that region
by indigenous people.  Some of the early descriptions of the landscape were swampland and dense tropical
forests, with little land good for agriculture or cattle raising.  The city changed the name to San Pedro Sula
in the 18th century due to some changes.  The "Sula" part of the name comes from the Minas de Sula,
gold mines located to the west of the village Naco.

For the Beginning years of its history, San Pedro Sula was the colonial mint, where gold, found to the west in the Naco, Sula, and Quimistan Valleys, had to be brought to smelt and where the Spanish crown collected a fifth of the value of gold.  The mint was moved to Gracias a Dios, and the ultimately Comayahua in the 1550's.

The French, the English, and the Dutch pirates raided and sacked the city, which then prompted the Spaniards to move the city to its now current location along the Chamelecon River.  San Pedro then languished to a neglected backwater, with very few Spanish settlers.  A lot of the new settlers were not attracted to the city.  They preferred higher and drier valleys inland with more farmland and gold mines.  Around that same time, lax Spanish control spurred illicit trade of alcohol from some of the Caribbean islands such as Cuba.

In 1590 the city grew to about 800 residents then to almost 10,000 by the 1890's, but most of the population wouldn't take place until the 19th century.  Then in the mid 1920's it would grow from 10,000 people to 100,000 people which was brought in from a boom in the banana plantations in the region.  The metropolitan area has almost grown to 1million inhabitants and continues to expand.  San Pedro spurred into the industrial city following a rail line from San Pedro and the coast , connecting the banana plantations to the ports of Tela and Puerto Cortes, as well as heavy investment from the local Palestinian businessmen.  San Pedro was then officially recognized as a city by the congress of Honduras on October 8, 1902.