The earliest signs of human habitation date from the early Stone Age about 250,000 years ago and evidence of every succeeding historical period may be found in the collections of the local Prehistorical Museum.

The town has long been known to classical music enthusiasts as the place of origin of Johann Sebastian Bach's best-known secular works, including the Brandenburg concertos and the Well-Tempered Clavier.

In 2013, the international homoeopathic medical society, Liga Medicorum Homoeopathica Internationalis, relocated its main operations to Köthen, so the city now is kind of a "world's capital of homoeopathy".

The pioneering ornithologist Johann Friedrich Naumann was born near Köthen and was employed at the ducal court for more than two decades (c. 1810-1835).

His well-renowned collection of almost 1300 specimens and drawings of European birds is now the main part of an ornithological museum that is also situated in the palace.

Köthen located to the south of Magdeburg, north of Halle, west of Dessau and east of Bernburg (Saale).