The History of Flores is a very interesting matter as is the history of Indonesia and many of the separate islands, Flores however has a few surprises and hidden away in the history books, some of them have only been revealed in the last few years. Flores is made up of five main cultural and linguistic groups who have migrated to Flores thought history including the Manggarai, Ngada, Lio, Sikka and Lamahlot. These people where the first to come to Flores throughout time the island has endured wave after wave of human settlement which has taken its toll on Flores and amplied difficult cultural strains on the indigenous people. Later to come were the Veddoids (Indian Hindu traders), Melanesian and explorers from Portugal. These were later followed by the Bugis, Makareese, Javanese and Sumbawanese of Indonesia.

The main religion in Flores is Catholicism, which was first introduced by the Portuguese and developed and maintained by the Dutch and German. It was these three European countries that were responsible for the modernization of the people, living conditions and the society of Flores.

Looking further back down the time there are extremely interesting presences that died out around 18000 years ago. To this day there are interesting disproportionately sized animals including the Flores Giant Rat and the famous Giant Komodo Dragons. These were the inversed effect of small island dwarfism where by animals shrink through evolution due to a small amount of food, these have also include tiny elephants in the past and even more surprisingly a tiny breed of early man exclusive only to Flores called Homo Floresiensis who were a only a meter tall. Where these people came from remains uncertain but the findings in 2004 by the National Archeological Research Center and University of New England uncovered fossilized remains that have changed the face of science and upturned many theories about modern man's descendants. Other findings include female fossils that date back to 3,500 years in Liang Toge and in Warloka, ancient Chinese affects have been uncovered.

There are also many cultural ceremonies and traditions that have stood the test of time throughout these unstable times such as the Whip fighting or 'Caci', a ritual for warriors and a dance popular in West Manggarai. These Indonesian ceremonies have also been the product of the Sulawesi tribes, and Sumbawanese from Bima have influenced Flores in a way that has remained very strong to this day and reaching out to the surrounding islands.

Portuguese interests lay with maintaining the sandalwood trade from Flores and built fortresses in Solor and Ende in order to secure this. It was also the Portuguese who introduced Catholicism in the early 1500s. the Dutch took over in the 17th century and forced the Portuguese out in 1850 taking complete control of Flores. The Dutch gradually renewed education and missionary work from this point. Since this time West Manggarai achieved independent regency with Labuan Bajo as its capital city in 2003 and have since initiated ambitious development plans.