The coast and the archipelago in Southwest Finland have been populated since late Stone Age (about 2000-1300 BC). The prehistory of the archipelago is, at the same time, history of the land uplift. When new islands rose from the sea, prehistoric settlements were set up there. The present national park area became inhabited in the Iron Age (500-1150 BC). Many ancient remains of the Iron Age settlements have been found in the National Parks co-operation area.

In the Baltic Sea, where the salinity was higher than nowadays, lived atlantic cod (*Gadus morhua*) and plenty of other sea fish. Hundreds of thousands seals lived on the islets and protruding rocks. The abundance of birds provided a source of meat, eggs and down.
Trade, handcraft and navigation were practiced already in the early times in addition to the basic sources of livelihood.
About half of the villages in the current National Park co-operation area were inhabited already in the Middle Age. The Swedish settlement moved to the area in the late 1200s, and therefore the population increased remarkably.
The burial mounds in Archipelago National Park are low and quite small heaps of stones, which have been built near the highest place of the islands, but not on the very top. Some graves are near the shore, and some are organised in groups of several cairns. Most of the burial mounds in Southwestern Archipelago, if not all of them, are from the Iron Age.
Many archeological findings in the outer archipelago have something to do with fishing as a source of livelihood. These include "tomtning" remains from the temporary dwellings of the fishermen, tracks for dragging boats across the land, labyrinths, stone stoves, and marks carved onto rocks.
The population of the archipelago grew until the mid-1500s, after which it began to decline. The natural environment could not support the growing population, and wars and epidemics also took their toll on the area. From the 1850s onward, new fishing nets contributed to the spread of settlement beyond the archipelago villages, and the population began to grow again.
In the early 1900s, the opportunities in cities attracted people away from the archipelago, and once again, the population declined until the 1970s, when summer residents began to occupy the Archipelago Sea more broadly.
The importance of protection was emphasized as early as the 1940s
Fragmented land and water areas acquired by the state for nature conservation formed Archipelago National Park, established on March 1, 1994.

By bus to ferry harbours