The city has a long history as a major urban area. It has been a large city since the first millennium BC, initially as the capital of Urartu in the 9th century BC and later as the center of the Armenian Kingdom of Vaspurakan. It remained an important center of Armenian culture until the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Today, Van has a Kurdish majority and a sizable Turkish minority

The province's Armenian population was devastated during Armenian Genocide by the Young Turks.[24] The regional administrator, Cevdet Bey, was reported to have said that "We have cleansed the Armenians and Syriac [Christian]s from Azerbaijan, and we will do the same in Van.[25] Numerous reports from Ottoman officials, such as a parliament deputy, the governor of Aleppo as well as the German consul in Van, suggested that deliberate provocations against the Armenians were being orchestrated by the local government.[25] In Mid-April 1915, Cevdet Bey ordered the execution of four Armenian leaders,[26][27] which drove the Armenians to take up arms in self-defense.[28] On the other hand, writer and genocide scholar Taner Akçam acknowledges that in the case of Van, the deportations may have been driven by military necessity[29] and states the resistance in Van should be examined as a separate case.[30]

Some scholars explain that the Armenians launched a rebellion at Van in 1915, lured by Russian promises of independence. Other scholars argue that the Armenian residents, hoping to avoid the slaughter being inflicted on the rural populations surrounding Van, defended themselves in the Armenian quarters of the city against the Turks.[31] The Russians finally relieved the Armenian defenders of Van in late May 1915. In August, a victory over the Russian army allowed the Ottoman army to retake Van. In September 1915, the Russians forced the Turks out of Van for the second time. Russian forces began to leave the area after the October Revolution in Russia in 1917, and by April 1918, it was recaptured by the Ottoman army. According to Taner Akçam, citing the Osmanli Belgelerinde Ermeniler 1915–1920 (Armenians in Ottoman Documents, 1915–1920), after the Turks took back the city from the Russians, they killed all Armenians in the city.[32] Clarence Ussher, an American physician and missionary in Van, and an eye-witness to the events, reported that 55,000 Armenians had been killed.[33][34] The end of World War I forced the Ottoman army to surrender its claim to Van, although it stayed in Turkish hands following the Turkish War of Independence

By 1920, Van fell under Turkish control again and its remaining Armenian inhabitants were expelled in a final round of ethnic cleansing.[31] With the Treaty of Lausanne and Treaty of Kars, the Treaty of Sèvres was annulled and Van remained de facto under Turkish sovereignty.

By the end of the conflicts, the town of Van was empty and in ruins. The city was rebuilt after the war a few kilometers east of the ancient citadel, which is now known as Van Castle (Van Kalesi). The city now lies at about 1,750 metres (5,741 feet) above sea level.