Ljubinje is an administrative unit with a long historical continuity. It was first mentioned in written records in 1404. It was part of the Popovo County or an independent county within the medieval Serbian state, a seat of the kadiluk and military structures during the Ottoman Empire, a district under Austro-Hungarian rule, and a county in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

After World War II, at the beginning of the communist rule in Yugoslavia, the administrative area of Ljubinje lost the wider region of Popovo but gained the areas of Žrvanj and Krtinje, reducing the municipality’s total area to approximately 320 km².