Landiswil is first mentioned in 1277 as Landoloswile.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 2.5% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.7%. 30.5% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.9% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 20.3% is used for growing crops and 39.8% is pastures, while 2.3% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is in rivers and streams.
The historical population is given in the following table:
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! year
! population
|-
| 1850
| 102
|-
| 1900
| 883
|-
| 1950
| 822
|-
| 2000
| 655
|-
|}
