The North Sea has an extensive history of maritime commerce, resource extraction, and warfare between among the people and nations on its coasts.

Archaeological evidence shows the migration of people and technology between Continental Europe, the British Isles, and Scandinavia throughout prehistory. The earliest records of Roman explorations of the sea begin in 12 BC. Southern Britain was formally invaded in 43 AD and gradually assimilated into the Roman Empire, leading to sustained trade across the North Sea and the English Channel. The Germanic Angles, Saxons, and Jutes from Frisia and Jutland began the next great migration across the North Sea during the Migration Period, conquering, displacing, and mixing with the native Celtic population in Britain. The Viking Age began in 793 and for the next two centuries saw significant cultural and economic exchange between Scandinavia and Europe as the Vikings used the North Sea as a jumping off point for raids, invasions, and colonization of Britain, France, Iberia, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic.

From the Middle Ages until the end of the 15th century, before the development of good roads, maritime trade on the North Sea connected the economies of northern Europe, Britain, and Scandinavia with each other as well as with the Baltic and the Mediterranean. The Hanseatic League, a confederation of merchant guilds and market towns, dominated sea trade in the North Sea and Baltic, establishing outposts in all major ports and stimulated the growth of maritime trade in Northern Europe.

By the 16th century, states were beginning to overshadown the less formal reach of the Hanseatic League in power and importance, with the Dutch Republic the first to exploit overseas colonies, a vast merchant marine, and a powerful navy to rise to prominence on the North Sea coast. Conflict with a growing England, which saw its future in maritime trade, was at the root of the first three Anglo-Dutch Wars between 1652 and 1673 each of which saw significant naval action in the North Sea. Scotland emerged as a prominent economic and cultural power during the Scottish Enlightenment of the 18th century. Militarily, the wars of the 18th and 19th centuries were not focused on the North Sea, though the Napoleonic Wars saw some naval battles, the British Royal Navy generally outclassed it's rivals and did not face a challenge to its dominance of the North Sea until World War I. During the First World War the North Sea became the main theatre of the war for surface action. The Second World War also saw action in the North Sea, including the German invasion of Norway, and large scale aerial warfare, though surface actions were very restricted.

After the war, the North Sea lost much of its military significance because it is bordered only by NATO member-states. However, its economic significant grew when in the 1960s states on the North Sea coasts began full-scale exploitation of its oil and gas resources. The North Sea continues to be an active trade route. The countries bordering the North Sea all claim the 12 nautical miles (22 km; 14 mi) of territorial waters within which they have exclusive fishing rights. Today, the North Sea is more important as a fishery and source of fossil fuel and renewable energy, since territorial expansion of the adjoining countries has ceased.