Cerro Maggiore name probably draws origin from 'cerro' (turkey oak), a plant pertaining to the family of the Fagacee that, in far ages, covered the territory. They try the existence of plants of turkey oak (cerro) in our zone and, consequently, the validity of the affirmations of the toponymic on the etymology of the name of the Country, the residual carbonates of turkey oak found in a tomb of the uncovered roman age in 1947. 'Maggiore' (the greater) attribute came instead added in 1862 in order to distinguish the Country from other localities that had the same one toponym. 

The first men to inhabit our places were the Celts, that reached Po Valley around the IV century b.C. In the 196 b.C. with the defeat of the Celts near the modern Casteggio at the hands of the Roman, have beginning the work of 'romanization' of the territory. To the fall of the Roman Empire of the West in the 476 a.C. he followed a period of a political-institutional instability, that he had term in the 568 with the arrival of the Longobardi and the formation of their reign. 

In the 774 Carlo Magno placed aim to the Longobard Reign and inaugurated the carolingian period. After the frank conquest the from Milan campaign came uniform in five peasantries: that one of Milan, of which it made Cerro Maggiore part, of the Seprio, of Stazzona, Burgaria and Lecco. In the X century, for requirements of defense tied to the frequent raids of the Ungari and to the reprisals of ducs the aspirants to the Reign of Italy, Cerro Maggiore came fortified: a castle fortified of solid walls and one was constructed long high tower approximately twenty meters the old road for Uboldo. 

In 1176 in the Battle of Legnano it probably came fought also in the territory of Cerro Maggiore (in Canazza locality, that it made part of the Commune of Cerro Maggiore until 1927). In the 1185 Cerro Maggiore came separated from the peasantry of Milan and combined to the peasantry of the Seprio. This last one passed then definitively under the dominion of Milan that, from 1287 approximately, became lordship of the Visconti family. Although Milan in those years lived a moment of great commercial development, Cerro Maggiore continued to be a village with an agricultural base.

Between the seven hundred and ight hundred community of Cerro Maggiore strongly was engaged in the agricultural development of the territory: the prevailing cultivation was that one of the grain, but that one of the screw and the mulberry is diffused quickly also.

To leave from XIX the century the industrial development had beginning, legacy mainly to the webbing of the cotton: the 'system of job', founded on the industry housewife, disappeared little to little, leaving space the first great industries. In the 1882 the Bernocchi opened the first webbing of Cerro Maggiore. The 1900's it carried, beyond to the industrial increase, the great processes which had to the world-wide conflicts; the second war cost to Cerro Maggiore 100 victims: a rather high percentage considering that the population, in those years, was formed from 7000 people. Beside the textile industry born, after the first world war, the first shoe factories: the industry of the leather and the footwear was second to the only textile industry. In the last few decades of XX the century a remarkable development of the tertiary has been had that has absorbed part of the force job a time occupied in the industrial activities.