The land known today as Naramata lies on the ancestral, traditional, and unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan Nation. In nsyilxcən, the area is called citxʷs paqəlqyn — “House of Bald Eagle.” The Naramata bench served as a seasonal camp for elk hunting and food gathering for thousands of years, with archaeological artifacts in the area dating back 4,500 to 5,000 years. The Syilx people’s deep connection to this stretch of lakeshore continues to this day through the Penticton Indian Band.

Non-Indigenous settlement began when real estate promoter John Moore Robinson purchased over 3,500 acres in 1906 from the South Okanagan Land Company. Robinson — who had already founded Summerland and Peachland — subdivided the land into 10-acre fruit lots and advertised across Canada and the British Isles. The name “Naramata” was chosen after cycling through Nine Mile Point, East Summerland, and Brighton Beach. Robinson famously claimed the final name came to him during a séance.

In 1914, Naramata was connected to the rest of Canada when the Kettle Valley Railway was completed on the hillside above the village. The section above Naramata was among the most difficult stretches of KVR construction, requiring extraordinary rock work including tunnels, switchbacks, and stone ovens built by workers to bake bread. The railway operated until 1974 and its right-of-way is now part of the Trans-Canada Trail.

Naramata remains an unincorporated community within Electoral Area “E” of the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen, governed by the RDOS rather than its own municipal council. In 2006, it earned designation as a Cittaslow village — one of only four communities in Canada recognized by the international slow-living movement. Much of the village is protected by the Agricultural Land Reserve, which has preserved its rural character while the surrounding orchards have steadily given way to the vineyards that now define the Naramata Bench.