Badminton has been played since ancient times; an early form of the sport was played in ancient Greece. In Japan, the related game Hanetsuki was played as early as the 16th century. In the west, badminton came from a game called battledore and shuttlecock, in which two or more players keep a feathered shuttlecock in the air with small racquets.

The modern form of Badminton however can be traced to India, where British military officers stationed there in the late 19th century became interested in a similar local game which was known to them as Poona (derived from Pune, an Indian garrison town). This game was taken back to England where the rules of badminton were set out. Another early version of the game was recorded in the 1850s in the southern Indian city of Tanjore, called pooppanthu vilayattam (Tamil for flower-ball game) in which balls made of wool and cardboard were used in the place of the modern-day shuttlecock.

Isaac Spratt, a London toy dealer, published a booklet, "Badminton Battledore - a new game" in 1860, but unfortunately no copy has survived.

The new sport was definitively launched in 1873 at the Badminton House, Gloucestershire, owned by the Duke of Beaufort. During that time, the game was referred to as "The Game of Badminton," and the game's official name became Badminton.

Until 1887, the sport was played in England under the rules that prevailed in India. The Bath Badminton Club standardized the rules and made the game applicable to English ideas. The basic regulations were drawn up in 1887. In 1893, the Badminton Association of England published the first set of rules according to these regulations, similar to today's rules, and officially launched badminton in a house called "Dunbar" at 6 Waverley Grove, Portsmouth, England on September 13 of that year. They also started the All England Open Badminton Championships, the first badminton competition in the world, in 1899.

The International Badminton Federation (IBF) (now known as Badminton World Federation) was established in 1934 with Canada, Denmark, England, France, the Netherlands, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, and Wales as its founding members. India joined as an affiliate in 1936. The BWF now governs international badminton and develops the sport globally.

While set-out in England, international badminton has traditionally been dominated by Denmark from Europe. Indonesia, South Korea and Malaysia are among the nations that have consistently produced world-class players in the past few decades and dominated competitions on the international level, with China being the most dominant in recent years.

羽球起源於亞洲，是種類似毽子的遊戲。相傳 19 世紀前後，在印度孟買有種兩人分別站在網的兩邊，以木拍對擊插有羽毛的絨線團的遊戲，名叫「普那」( Poona )。1860 年左右，一位從印度回國的英國退役軍官，將這遊戲介紹到英國。這種遊戲傳入英國之後，首先在格洛斯特夏鄉( Gloucestershire )畢佛特公爵的伯明頓山莊定下遊戲規則，這就是羽球運動的最初模式，所以這種新的運動便以伯明頓山莊命名，即Badminton，中文譯名為羽毛球，開始由英國流傳到英聯邦各國，二十世紀初傳到了亞洲、美洲，最後傳到了非洲。

起初，羽球比賽是在大房子或樓房的大廳裏進行的，羽球則是用香檳酒瓶的軟蓋木塞插上羽毛做成，比賽只限於貴族和上流社會的人參加．後來，隨著「用運動培育紳士風度，淑女風度」這一意識的誕生，羽球運動才得以普及和發展。在這種新的思潮影響下，參加比賽的運動員都以尊敬對方，光明磊落等姿態進行比賽。當然，那時的比賽都是業餘性質的，現今，盡管羽球運動已經發展成為專業化和商業化，但我們仍可看到比賽場上許多繼承傳統的良好風格。