Marina di Ragusa, anciently known as Mazzarelli (from arabic "Marsa A'Rillah", small landfall), has ancient origins. Edrisi (Ceuta 1099, Sicily 1164), an arabian geographer, was the first one to talk about the swamp of Mazzarelli. But the most important information originates from the historian Tommaso Fazello (Sciacca 1498, Palermo 1570), who reports that Mazzarelli represented a safe harbor for all those watercrafts that wanted to escape from Barberia's pirates afflicting Malta Channel. In order to avoid to be pillaged by pirates, freighters bore down to Mazzarelli, where they waited for the night to start their journey to Malta, or, if it was impossible to sail, they hauled the boats high and dry.Still today in the toponimy of Marina di Ragusa it is possibile to find an area named "Scalo Trapanese" (Trapani's Wharf), since Trapani's seafarers coasted Sicily Channel in order to reach Mazzarelli for setting a shorter course for Malta.

In the 16th century Turkish threatened Sicily, so Camillo Camilliani, a Florentine architect, was charged with studying Sicily's coasts in order to project a sighting system displaced all along the Sicilian coastline. In this study, completed in the end of 1584, Camilliani claimed that in those days in Mazzarelli there were already a small port and some naval stores for tuna-fishing. The watching and defensive tower was built in 1579 thanks to Count Luigi Enriquez Cabrera, following a parliamentary bylaw proposed by Viceroy Marco Antonio Colonna.

The actual development of Mazzarelli started about 1870, when first asphalt mines opened up in Ragusa. Asphalt, after its mining, was transported to Mazzarelli by hundreds of carts drivers in order to be exported.

In 1928 Mazzarelli turned its name into Marina di Ragusa, at the express wish of Filippo Pennavaria, a fascist hierarch.

In the 50's the small fishing village started to become a summer holiday resort. Nowadays Marina di Ragusa is one of the most well-equipped e renowned South-Eastern Sicily's tourist resort. During summer more than 60,000 vacationers can enjoy relax, golden beaches and a lot of fun.