The tripoint with Tarvisio in Italy and Kranjska Gora in Slovenia is south of the town at the top of the Ofen (Slovene: Peč, Italian: Monte Forno) at 1,509m/4,951 ft. Today there is a marker at this location.

It can be further divided into 21 Ortschaften (with population totals 2001): The area around Arnoldstein was already settled in ancient times, when a Roman Road along the Gailitz creek connected Aquileia with Virunum near present-day Klagenfurt, capital of the Noricum province.

Upon his coronation in 1014, Emperor Henry II had granted large estates in the Duchy of Carinthia to the Bamberg diocese, that originally had been a possession of the Patriarchs of Aquileia.

To improve the economic situation, the abbot of Arnoldstein with the consent of the Bamberg bishop in 1495 allowed the Augsburg merchants Ulrich, Georg and Jakob Fugger to exploit the surrounding ore deposits and to build up smelting works, mainly for copper and silver.

At their Fuggerau enterprise, the Fugger family was largely engaged in the trade on the route to Venice, until the premises were repurchased by the Arnoldstein monastery in 1570.