The valley floors are heavily settled in places, whereas the steep slopes in the higher areas are mostly bare of buildings and decked with forest.

Also belonging to Kirn are the outlying homesteads of Akvas Papiermühle, Cramersmühle, Füllmannsmühle, Hasenfels, Kallenfelser Hof, Kyrburg, Ölmühle Spielmann and Schleif-Mühle.

Archaeological finds from Celtic and Roman times (the remnants of a villa rustica were unearthed in the part of town known as "Über Nahe"), however, point to a considerably greater age than that.

In 926, the Abbey gave three Frankish noblemen by way of exchange a hill suitable for use as a fortification, and they proceeded to build a castle there to defend their holdings against the Magyars.

Despite its economic and ecclesiastical importance, Kirn had at its disposal since earliest times only a small municipal area, which even today has not changed.

Livestock raising, the low-lying oak forest right nearby and the water from the Nahe and the Kyr consequently led to the establishment of tanning and wool processing.

On the Hahnenbach side of the square stood the 1508 town hall, which was torn down in 1849 to make way for what was even then a growing amount of traffic.

Around the church over on the Kyr's left bank stood clerics' houses as well as the Latin school, which was first mentioned in 1402, and which in the course of its history sent dozens of students to every university in Germany.

Outwardly, the Kirn townsfolk's new self-assurance showed itself in the way they ended their own serfdom in 1600 by buying their freedom for 4,000 Rhenish guilders.

Foreign fighters (Spaniards, Croats, Frenchmen and Swedes, to name but a few) along with two Plague epidemics wrought havoc with the town, reducing its 230 families in 1616 (two years before the war broke out) to only 74 afterwards.

After the House of Salm died out, the lordship over the Oberamt of Kirn and the half share of the town itself passed in 1743 to the line of Salm-Leuze.

Many of his master builder Thomas Petri's buildings still characterize Kirn's appearance, and the same is true for a number of the outlying villages that then belonged to the Oberamt.

Johann Dominik's nephew and successor Friedrich III ruined the country's finances with his impecunious ways of conducting his life, to the point at which the Reichskammergericht even imposed a bankruptcy régime on the town.

When the decisions made at the Congress of Vienna in 1814 and 1815 began to be implemented locally in 1817, things got even worse for Kirn as it was assigned to the Kreuznach district.

The violent persecution that took place on 21 September 1287 (11 Tishri 5048 according to data in Siegmund Salfeld's Das Martyrologium des Nürnberger Memorbuches) saw the murder of six Jews in Kirn.

The Jews who had moved to town were by and large from smaller outlying places in the region, among others Hennweiler, Bruschied, Becherbach, Simmern unter Dhaun (today Simmertal), Merxheim, Meddersheim, Sien, Laufersweiler and Hottenbach.

To provide for the community's religious needs, a schoolteacher was hired, who also busied himself as the hazzan and the shochet (preserved is a whole series of job advertisements for such a position in Kirn from such publications as Der Israelit).

In 1932, the Jewish community's leaders were Ferdinand Schmelzer (head of leadership), since 1911 the owner of a shop that sold brushes and household goods at Radergasse 1, Dr. med.

On Kristallnacht (9–10 November 1938), the synagogue's interior was utterly destroyed by Brownshirt thugs, and perhaps worse, 13 Jewish homes were also invaded and demolished.

Kirn's mayor is Frank Ensminger (FDP), and his deputies are Christa Hermes (CDU), Michael Kloos (SPD), and Hartmut Ott (FWG).

Kirn fosters partnerships with the following places: The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:[13] This Gothic Revival hall church, originally consecrated to Saint Pancras, with its Late Gothic quire and Romanesque steeple from the 11th or 12th century was renovated in 1992 and 1993 to give it back its original form and interior design.

The horseshoe-shaped building, whose front is still adorned with the princely family's coat of arms in its original form, was built by master builder Johann Thomas Petri from Schneppenbach.

The castle uses the spectacular natural ledge, of which the nearby formation, the Oberhauser Felsen (also called the “Kirner Dolomiten”), is also a part, that lies athwart the Hahnenbach valley.

Highest up sits the castle Stein, which with its neck ditch, gate tower, bastions, shield wall and five-sided keep set back from the side of any expected attack.

Rented for this purpose was a backyard behind the inn “Zur Krone” on Übergasse (a lane), which had once been used as a gymnasium (today a carpark occupies this spot).

On 28 February 1928, the Kirner Zeitung also published a report about this: Ten years later, on Kristallnacht (9–10 November 1938), Brownshirt thugs thrust their way into the synagogue and destroyed the whole institution.

[17] At the community hall (Gesellschaftshaus), which was built in 1879 by the leather company of Carl Simon & Söhne in the Classicist style, concert, cabaret and theatrical events are held the year round by Kulturinitiative Kirn.

At the Handwerker- und Bauernmarkt (“Craftsmen’s and Farmers’ Market”) in October, small businesses from the Kirn area present their handmade wares and offer them for sale.

Kirn's biggest employer is SIMONA AG, a worldwide-active manufacturer and distributor of thermoplastic semi-finished products, which originally grew out of the leatherware field.

[20] Medical services are supplied by the hospital run by the kreuznacher diakonie (always written with lowercase initials), many general and specialized healthcare professionals who have located in town and five pharmacies.