The name is derived from the word meaning “pomegranate” in that language used to symbolize abundance in the past. Historian Strabon reports that the City of Side was first constructed by the colonists migrated from “Kyme” in the 7th Century B.C. Later on, it was mastered by the Lydians in the 6th Century B.C. and by the Persians at the beginning of the 3rd Century B.C. successively.

When the fleet of the King of Syria, Antiochus III was destroyed near the deep waters of Side by the Rodhosian fleet, Pamphylia was given to the Pergamum Kingdom, but Side was independent at that time. The most brilliant and thriving days of Side start in this age. It set up no only a fleet of merchant-ships in addition to warships establishing a mighty domination of trade on the district, but also was distinguished as a center of culture. As time went on, piracy became a way of living, and noble spiritual ideals left their places to plundering and ransacking, so that Side turned to be only a city for marketing the ransacked and pilfered goods of the pirates.

It became a self-determined province of Rome in the First Century A.D. Most of the monumental masterpieces we see today belong to that period. After the 5th Century A.D. Side was under the influence of Christian doctrine as the other cities of this district. From the 9th Century A.D. until the year 1900 the city was under the continued attacks of the Arabs. In the beginning of the 20th Century some people migrated here from Crete.