History
The territorial history of Idar-Oberstein’s individual centres is marked by a considerable splintering of lordly domains in the local area. Only in Napoleonic times, beginning in 1794, with its reorganization and merging of various territorial units, was some order brought to the traditional mishmash of local lordships. However, shortly thereafter, the Congress of Vienna brought the future town division once again, as the river Nahe became a border, and the centres on its north bank were thereby grouped into the Principality of Birkenfeld, an exclave of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, most of whose territory was in what is now northwest Germany, with a coastline on the North Sea.
The towns of Idar and Oberstein belonged to the Barons of Daun-Oberstein (who later became the Counts of Falkenstein) until 1670. In 1865, both Idar and Oberstein were granted town rights, and finally in 1933, they were forcibly united (along with the municipalities of Algenrodt and Tiefenstein) by the Nazis to form the modern town of Idar-Oberstein.
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