The town, a health resort situated in the lower Lahn River valley, belongs to the Diez Municipal Association.

Laurenburg Castle is first mentioned in 1093 in the purported founding charter of the Maria Laach Abbey (a document some historians consider fabricated).

Dudo, considered the founder of the aristocratic House of Nassau, is thought to be the builder of the castle (perhaps with his father Rupert, the Archbishop of Mainz's Vogt in Siegerland).

In 1643 Reichsgraf Peter Melander of Holzappel, an imperial field marshal during the Thirty Years' War, acquired Laurenburg, along with the greater area known as the Esterau.

Viticulture in Laurenburg was first documented in 1445, with the establishment of a vineyard at the Taubenhaus of Count Philip the Elder of Katzenelnbogen under the castle.