The city was founded in Gukovo Proval'skaya steppe in 1878 as a railway station. Further development, he received thanks to reserves of high quality coal, anthracite. Coal was mined here before the 1917 revolution. The main branch of the economy - coal industry; in six operating mines. Since the beginning of 2009 coal production continued to be made only on two of them, while others stopped working. JSC "Gukovugol" - the largest enterprise of the city. Currently Gukovo supplies more than half of the total coal production of the Rostov region. There are also light and food industries, furniture factory, a brick factory.