The origins of the village, Tárbena, go back to prehistoric times attested by the finding of Iberian remains. One may find the traces left by the primitive settlers in the caves known as "Coveta de les Lletres" and "Cova de Dalt". The geographic situation made the road through Tárbena an obligatory one, to head toward Denia or Sagunto as the Bernia mountain reached the sea. It was not unitl the end of the 19 th century when a bridge (Pont del Mascarat) was built allowing the travellers to follow the shoreside. There are still names used in the village from those days like the "Camino de los Arrieros" (The muleteer’s path) or "La Venta" (The Roadside Inn) which remind us of the times when Tárbena was a passing point between the Marina Baixa and the Marina Alta.

The name of the village, Tárbena, derives from the Iberian. "Tarb" means high. Not much is known of what happened in the region before 1607. After the morisco expulsion decreted by Felipe III, the villages in the mountains of Bernia and Aitana where resettled with people from Aragon and Catalonia. Tárbena was resettled by seven Majorican families who brought their language and their customs. In our days the traditional majorican sausage "sobrasada" is still made and the majorican dialect is still used.

The development of tourism of the region, especially in Benidorm, since the 1950s has progressively changed the area, although the small villages in the mountain still maintain the taste of the other times.