An endoscope bending control apparatus comprising: an image feature value calculating section configured to calculate, based on an endoscopic image acquired by an image pickup device in an endoscope including the image pickup device and a bending portion on a distal end side of an insertion portion, an image feature value related to a luminal dark part in a lumen into which the insertion portion is inserted; an intra-image target position detecting section configured to calculate a center position of the luminal dark part as an insertion target based on the image feature value calculated by the image feature value calculating section; and an amount-of-bending calculating section configured to calculate a current position and direction of a distal end of the insertion portion, characterized by a storage section configured to store information on the position of the luminal dark part calculated in the past and information on a position and a direction of a distal end of the insertion portion as history information; a bending control section configured to perform bending control on the bending portion in either one of a first bending operation mode in which a position of the luminal dark part calculated by the intra-image target position detecting section is set as an insertion target and the distal end of the insertion portion is directed to the position and a second bending operation mode in which the distal end of the insertion portion is directed in a direction of a current position of the luminal dark part estimated with reference to history information including the position of the luminal dark part calculated in the past and stored in the storage section; an operation mode switching section configured to switch an operation mode from one of the first and the second bending operation modes to the other of the first and the second bending operation modes according to a first switching condition based on the image feature value calculated by the image feature value calculating section; and a switching condition changing section configured to, for the purpose of bending control corresponding to switching between the bending operation modes, change a switching condition from the first switching condition used before the switching to a second switching condition different from the first switching condition. an image feature value calculating section configured to calculate, based on an endoscopic image acquired by an image pickup device in an endoscope including the image pickup device and a bending portion on a distal end side of an insertion portion, an image feature value related to a luminal dark part in a lumen into which the insertion portion is inserted; an intra-image target position detecting section configured to calculate a center position of the luminal dark part as an insertion target based on the image feature value calculated by the image feature value calculating section; and an amount-of-bending calculating section configured to calculate a current position and direction of a distal end of the insertion portion, characterized by a storage section configured to store information on the position of the luminal dark part calculated in the past and information on a position and a direction of a distal end of the insertion portion as history information; a bending control section configured to perform bending control on the bending portion in either one of a first bending operation mode in which a position of the luminal dark part calculated by the intra-image target position detecting section is set as an insertion target and the distal end of the insertion portion is directed to the position and a second bending operation mode in which the distal end of the insertion portion is directed in a direction of a current position of the luminal dark part estimated with reference to history information including the position of the luminal dark part calculated in the past and stored in the storage section; an operation mode switching section configured to switch an operation mode from one of the first and the second bending operation modes to the other of the first and the second bending operation modes according to a first switching condition based on the image feature value calculated by the image feature value calculating section; and a switching condition changing section configured to, for the purpose of bending control corresponding to switching between the bending operation modes, change a switching condition from the first switching condition used before the switching to a second switching condition different from the first switching condition.