Largely funded by the Barclays financial company, with 20 other investors including Compagnie Générale des Eaux, the Havas group, Union des Assurances de Paris and the Picardy region, the park cost 850 million French francs to build and generated 1,200 jobs. The location was chosen due to the transport network: a private interchange connects it with the nearby A1 autoroute and a bus shuttle service connects it with Paris Métro Line 7 at La Courneuve's 8 Mai 1945 station. Jack Lang, then Minister of Culture, inaugurated the park on 30 April 1989 after two years of work.

The opening of Disneyland Paris in 1992 caused Parc Astérix's attendance to fall 30% and its revenue by 19%. However, attendance soon stabilised to around 2 million visitors per year.

In October 2005, Parc Astérix ran La Fête des Druides ("The Festival of the Druids"), as a way of "thumbing their noses" at Halloween. Season 2007 saw the Parc Astérix opening for the first time during the Christmas holidays. In 2009, for the park's 20th anniversary, it opened during the weekends in September and October and ran a Halloween event called Peur sur le Parc Astérix ("Fear at Parc Astérix"). In May 2018, the park's then Head of Construction, Thomas Dubosc, announced on television the construction of Toutatis, a new multi-launch roller coaster manufactured by Intamin, scheduled to be opened in 2021 yet only opened for season 2023 due to COVID-19 and woodcutting delays. In January 2021, the park announced it was closing its dolphin and sea lion enclosure, the Delphinarium, in order to focus on rides and other shows.