The valley of the Danube was abounding with game, and many caves in the slopes of the crater provided shelter for Neanderthals and their successors.

They were replaced about 90 AD by the Romans, who secured the region by building forts and the Limes (which was some km north of the present district).

After the war, the Counts of the mini-states (in the meantime a third county called Oettingen-Spielberg had been founded) recruited settlers from Austria to repopulate the land.

The remaining states of Oettingen-Wallerstein and Oettingen-Spielberg annexed his lands and turned them into a Catholic region.

In the Congress of Vienna the affiliation of the region with Bavaria was confirmed, and the sovereignty of the Ries ended.

Further north there is the Nördlinger Ries, a huge depression, which is in fact an ancient impact crater, caused by a meteorite some 14.8 million years ago.