diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.1.0.rst b/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.1.0.rst
index 705c335acfb48..822b7dc2e5caa 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.1.0.rst
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.1.0.rst
@@ -103,9 +103,10 @@ Bug fixes
 
 Categorical
 ^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+- Bug where :func:`merge` was unable to join on non-unique categorical indices (:issue:`28189`)
 - Bug when passing categorical data to :class:`Index` constructor along with ``dtype=object`` incorrectly returning a :class:`CategoricalIndex` instead of object-dtype :class:`Index` (:issue:`32167`)
 -
--
 
 Datetimelike
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^
diff --git a/pandas/_libs/join.pyx b/pandas/_libs/join.pyx
index dfa7aa708d681..f696591cf3bd1 100644
--- a/pandas/_libs/join.pyx
+++ b/pandas/_libs/join.pyx
@@ -254,6 +254,8 @@ ctypedef fused join_t:
     float64_t
     float32_t
     object
+    int8_t
+    int16_t
     int32_t
     int64_t
     uint64_t
diff --git a/pandas/core/indexes/category.py b/pandas/core/indexes/category.py
index caa6a9a93141f..11b603f3478ae 100644
--- a/pandas/core/indexes/category.py
+++ b/pandas/core/indexes/category.py
@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@
 from pandas.core.indexes.base import Index, _index_shared_docs, maybe_extract_name
 from pandas.core.indexes.extension import ExtensionIndex, inherit_names
 import pandas.core.missing as missing
+from pandas.core.ops import get_op_result_name
 
 _index_doc_kwargs = dict(ibase._index_doc_kwargs)
 _index_doc_kwargs.update(dict(target_klass="CategoricalIndex"))
@@ -785,6 +786,12 @@ def _delegate_method(self, name: str, *args, **kwargs):
             return res
         return CategoricalIndex(res, name=self.name)
 
+    def _wrap_joined_index(
+        self, joined: np.ndarray, other: "CategoricalIndex"
+    ) -> "CategoricalIndex":
+        name = get_op_result_name(self, other)
+        return self._create_from_codes(joined, name=name)
+
 
 CategoricalIndex._add_numeric_methods_add_sub_disabled()
 CategoricalIndex._add_numeric_methods_disabled()
diff --git a/pandas/tests/reshape/merge/test_merge.py b/pandas/tests/reshape/merge/test_merge.py
index 4f2cd878df613..d80e2e7afceef 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/reshape/merge/test_merge.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/reshape/merge/test_merge.py
@@ -2163,3 +2163,25 @@ def test_merge_datetime_upcast_dtype():
         }
     )
     tm.assert_frame_equal(result, expected)
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("n_categories", [5, 128])
+def test_categorical_non_unique_monotonic(n_categories):
+    # GH 28189
+    # With n_categories as 5, we test the int8 case is hit in libjoin,
+    # with n_categories as 128 we test the int16 case.
+    left_index = CategoricalIndex([0] + list(range(n_categories)))
+    df1 = DataFrame(range(n_categories + 1), columns=["value"], index=left_index)
+    df2 = DataFrame(
+        [[6]],
+        columns=["value"],
+        index=CategoricalIndex([0], categories=np.arange(n_categories)),
+    )
+
+    result = merge(df1, df2, how="left", left_index=True, right_index=True)
+    expected = DataFrame(
+        [[i, 6.0] if i < 2 else [i, np.nan] for i in range(n_categories + 1)],
+        columns=["value_x", "value_y"],
+        index=left_index,
+    )
+    tm.assert_frame_equal(expected, result)