Dutch settlers came to live in "Utin" in the twelfth century. In 1156 Eutin became a market town. It later became the seat of the Prince-Bishopric of Lübeck because Lübeck itself was an imperial free city. When the bishopric was secularized in 1803, Eutin became part of the Duchy of Oldenburg. In the Greater Hamburg Act of 1937, Eutin passed from the Free State of Oldenburg to the Prussian Province of Schleswig-Holstein. After World War II, it became part of the modern Bundesland of Schleswig-Holstein.