The municipality lies on the Hinterbach in the transitional zone between the Kempfelder Hochmulde (“high hollow”) and the Idar-Soon-Pforte (“gate”) east of the Idarwald (forest, part of the Hunsrück).

South of the main village lies the outlying centre of Asbacherhütte (“Asbach Ironworks”), which traces its beginnings to an iron-smelting complex.

In the wedge of woodland between the two deep dales, scattered remnants of a number of barrows bear witness to very early human habitation going back as far as the Hunsrück-Eifel Culture in La Tène times.

In the more recent past, the Asbach Ironworks down below on the Fischbach played an important rôle as a regional hub for iron smelting in the early Industrial Revolution.

[3] Until administrative restructuring in Rhineland-Palatinate in 1969, this Hunsrück village belonged to the Amt of Kempfeld in the now abolished Bernkastel district, whose seat was at Bernkastel-Kues.

For more than 25 years now there has been an agricultural processing plant, working under strict ecological rules, turning out high-quality products from its own farm.

In Asbacherhütte is found a clinical-paedagogical institute run by the deaconry of Bad Kreuznach as a home for handicapped people who need minimal assistance.