A medieval village situated in the richKłodzko Valley, Nowa Ruda developed in the mid-13th century as part of the Kingdom of Bohemia. German immigrants settled there as part of the Ostsiedlung. The oldest known mention of the settlement comes from 1337 from a document issued in nearby Kłodzko, when it was under Polish rule as part of the Duchy of Ziębice, before passing to Bohemia in the next decades. Officially, the settlement was granted a city charter in 1363 and received the name of Newenrode. In the Late Middle Ages, weaving, clothmaking and shoemaking developed in the town. In the years 1427-1429 the town was invaded by the Hussites. The city was rechartered under a local variant of the Magdeburg Law in 1434 and then again in 1596. From 1459 it was part of the Bohemian-ruled County of Kladsko. The city was invaded and devastated again during the Thirty Years' War in 1622.
In 1742 it passed to Prussia, and from 1871 to 1945 part of Germany. In the second half of the 19th century the town developed due to coal mining and the textile industry. In 1884 it suffered a great fire. After World War I, it suffered an economic crisis. The town was no longer a district seat after 1932, when it was reincorporated into the Landkreis Glatz. During World War II, the Germans established three labour units for French, Belgian and Soviet prisoners of war, as well as two forced labour camps. Also during the war, the largest mining disaster in the town's history took place, 187 miners were killed.
Following the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II the region became part of Poland, and the town took on its present name, with the German population being expelled in accordance to the Potsdam Agreement. It was repopulated by Poles, expellees from former eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union, settlers from central Poland and miners returning from France. In 1973 the settlement of Słupiec was included within the town limits as a new district. In 1976 and 1979 mining disasters occurred, in which 17 and 7 miners respectively died. After the adoption of Ostpolitik by the German ChancellorWilly Brandt, the former German inhabitants were allowed to travel to their hometowns and tried to establish relations with the current population and the Holy See redrew the boundaries of the ecclesiastical provinces along the post-war borders. On 28 June 1972 the Catholic parishes of Nowa Ruda were transferred from the traditional Hradec Králové diocese to the Archdiocese of Wrocław. The area was notable in the Middle Ages as a source of rich iron ore deposits. Until 2000 there was also a coal mine and a gabbro mine in Nowa Ruda's borough of Słupiec.
The Literary Heights Festival, a Polish literary festival founded in 2015 which takes place in the vicinity of Gmina Nowa Ruda at the foot of the Owl Mountains in the Kłodzko Valley. The event's organizers include the Mount Babel Cultural Association, the city and commune of Nowa Ruda, while the hosts are Karol Maliszewski and Olga Tokarczuk. The festival's program includes educational sessions, debates, concerts, panels, shows, meetings, poetry, literary workshops, film screenings, culinary workshops and various exhibitions.
