According to tradition, the Benedictine abbey of Herrenchiemsee was established about 765 AD by the Agilolfing duke Tassilo III of Bavaria at the northern tip of the Herreninsel.

In 1215, with the approval of Pope Innocent III, the Salzburg archbishop Eberhard von Regensburg made the monastery church the cathedral of a suffragan diocese in its own right, the Bishopric of Chiemsee, including several parishes on the mainland and in Tyrol.

King Ludwig II of Bavaria warded off plans for the complete deforestation of the island by a Württemberg timber trade company by acquiring it in 1873.

From 10 to 23 August 1948, the representatives of eleven German states of the Western Zones and West Berlin met at the Old Palace as the Verfassungskonvent (Constitutional Convention) to prepare the work for drafting the Basic Law (Grundgesetz) with a view to the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany.

In 1867, the young king Ludwig II had traveled to France but had to return to Bavaria when he heard of the death of his uncle Otto, without an opportunity to visit the Palace of Versailles.

After several revisions, Dollmann's designs for a former pavilion resembling Grand Trianon or the Château de Marly had grown to a large palace, including a copy of the Versailles Hall of Mirrors.

Meant as a homage to the adored King Louis XIV and his divine right, Herrenchiemsee arose as a private, yet vast residence, which resembled Versailles but was never designed to host a thousand-head royal household.

Ludwig only had an opportunity to stay at the Palace for a few days in September 1885, with a handful of rooms richly decorated and the unfinished parts covered by colorful canvasses.

Unlike the medieval themed Neuschwanstein, begun in 1869, the Neo-Baroque New Palace stands as a monument to Ludwig's admiration of King Louis XIV of France.

The palace had been built at a mostly inaccessible spot, in the middle of a forest, on a more or less remote lake island accessible by boat only – today via a system of small steamboats.

This location, in defiance of both, an air of "enchantment" around it and the nearby chain of the Chiemgau Alps looming over and reflecting in the lake, may have been and may still be considered clearly less appealing than Neuschwanstein's more immediate, thus spectacularly impressive alpine backdrop near Füssen – not to speak of it having been perched right upon the blasted away tip of a steep rock and a quite intimidating gorge instead of a back yard.

The latter's international popularisation, propelled by the inspiration Disney drew from it – say: "Cinderella Castle" – may only have added to the disproportional attention the two venues enjoy with tourists.