The district of Balangir is named after the headquarters towns of Balangir. This town was also the headquarters of the feudatory state of Patna, since the eighties of the nineteenth century.Balaram Deo, the brother of Narasimha Deo, the 12th Raja of Patna, established Balangir . As Balaram Deo is known to have flourished about the middle of 16th century, the origin of the town of Balangir has also been attributed to that period. It is said that the town being founded by Balaram Deo was named after him as Balaramgarh, from which the present name Balangir has been derived. There is however no recorded evidence to support this theory.

The district of Balangir is flanked in the North-west by the Gandhamardan hill, and in the north-east by the rock-infested Mahanadi. Many hill streams traverse it. It is the land of Tantrik culture. It is also notable for having experimented in the republican form of Government that was overthrown by Ramai Deo. Ramai founded the kingdom of Patna in the 14th century, which within a short span of its militant career become the head of the cluster of eighteen Garhs. The Chauhan rule ended with the merger of the state of Patna and Sonepur with Odisha on the 1st January, 1948. They together from the district of Balangir. Sonepur was carved out as a separate district on 1.4.1993.