Founded in 1596 by the Spaniards on the banks of the River Grijalva under the name of Villa Hermosa, in 1826 the village was raised to the rank of city under the name of San Juan Bautista. In 1915, the governor of Tabasco, Francisco Mújica, ordered to change the name of the city back to its current Villahermosa.

Between 1957 and 1958, the poet Carlos Pellicer rescued the main monuments in the then inaccessible La Venta archeological site. He placed them in surroundings similar to those from where they had been extracted, so that the world would know about these extraordinary archeological pieces. Visitors can now admire them in the La Venta Museum-Park.