It is believed that the settlement on the banks of the Klyazma River, located on the site of modern Kovrov, was founded in the 12th century by Prince Yuri Dolgoruky. Initially, the village was named Elifanovka, after one of the residents a trapper whose name was Elifan. Legend has it that in 1157, Grand Duke Andrei Yuryevich Bogolyubsky lost his way in the winter and came to the village on the Christmas Eve. On this occasion, the prince ordered to build the Nativity Church in the village to give the village the name of Rozhdestvenskoye. Later, Rozhdestvenskoye was renamed as Kovrovo, after the new owners – the Kovrov princes.

By a decree of Empress Catherine II, on 1 September 1778, the Kovrov district was established as part of the Vladimir and Kostroma governorships, and the village of Kovrovo received the status of a chief town of the district. In 1796, it lost this status, but in 1803, it was restored.

In August 1864, the Kovrov railway workshops were opened. In 1880, Kovrov became the starting point of the Murom Railway on the Kovrov-Murom line.

In 1929, the Kovrov railway workshops were reorganised into a mechanical repair plant that carried out orders for the repair of imported excavators. When the question arose about the possibility of producing domestic earthmoving machines, it was decided to establish an excavator plant on the basis of the previous workshops. On 21 April 1931, the first Kovrovets excavator left the factory gates, and mass production began in 1933. For its great performance, in 1996, the Kovrov Excavator Plant was awarded the highest Soviet award, the Order of Lenin.

In August 1916, construction of the Kovrov Machine Gun Plant started (since 1927, Tool Plant No. 2, since 1932, Tool Plant No. 2 named after K. O. Kirkizh, since 1949, Plant named after V. in front of the central entrance Degtyarev). In 1918, the Main Artillery Directorate sent famous weapons designers V. G. Fedorov and V. in front of the central entrance Degtyarev to Kovrov.

Plant named after K. O. Kirkizh became the main enterprise for the production of automatic weapons for the front. In 1941, V.A Degtyarev in front of the central entrance the famous anti-tank rifle in the Kovrov plant. During the war, the plant produced and sent to the active army 1,202,481 units of various weapons, including light and tank machine guns, Shpagin submachine guns, anti-tank rifles, ShVAK aircraft guns. On 18 December 1941, the armored train Kovrovsky Bolshevik equipped by the plant was sent to the front. During the war years, the excavator plant produced 10 thousand sets of wheels for the T-34 tank, 25 thousand casings for rockets, 40 thousand casings for aerial bombs, 2.5 million casings for mines.

Starting from 1946, large-scale production of motorcycles was mastered at Tool Plant No. 2; in the late 1950s, the Degtyarev plant started producing missile weapons.

In 1949, the Kovrov sewing factory was founded (today, OJSC Sudar), and in 1968 the Kovrovstroy Trust was created. Large-scale housing construction began in the southern microdistrict of the city. In 1970, a new reinforced concrete bridge across the Klyazma was put into operation, and trolleybus service was opened in 1975.

On 3 November 2011, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the Decree on Awarding the city of Kovrov the City of Military Glory honorary title of the Russian Federation. Two years later, the City of Military Glory stele was installed on the square in front of the central entrance of JSC Plant named after V.A. Degtyarev.