Past ways of spelling the name include:[3] The municipal territory extends on both banks of the Main about halfway between Würzburg and Aschaffenburg in Lower Franconia.

This geological plain with a slight slope to the southeast is the product of a large continental sea that drained owing to a tectonic shift.

In the east, the range is abutted by the Fränkische Platte (a flat, mostly agricultural region), whose geology is mainly Muschelkalk-based.

The sandstone bedrock with strata of loess and clay in conjunction with an extensive forest provide for excellent water quality of the springs and groundwater of the region.

In 1333 Lohr was granted town rights, which can be explained by the disagreement about the inheritance of the Counts of Rieneck-Rothenfels, which had died out.

The town lords were the Counts of Rieneck, who had been enfeoffed by the Archbishop of Mainz (evidence of this is only available beginning in 1366).

In 1559, after the last Count of Rieneck, Philipp III’s death, the fief passed to the Archbishopric of Mainz.

The former Oberamt of the Prince-Bishopric of Würzburg was secularized in favour of Prince Primate von Dalberg's Principality of Aschaffenburg and passed along with this state in 1814 (by this time it had become a part of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt) to the Kingdom of Bavaria.

Between 1940 and 1945, under Nazi rule more than 600 children, women and men were deported to Sonnenstein and Grafeneck, as well as to the Auschwitz and Mauthausen concentration camps from what was then the Health and Care Institute (now the Regional Hospital for Psychiatry) as part of the Euthanasia programme, "Action T4".

Since 1993, a bronze relief in the street by artist Rainer Stoltz serves as a memorial to these victims of the Nazi régime.

On 2 April 1945, Lohr citizen Karl Brand was murdered, because he wanted to surrender the town to American troops without a fight.

[7] From 1972 to 1978, the surrounding communities of Halsbach, Rodenbach, Ruppertshütten, Sackenbach, Steinbach, Wombach and Pflochsbach were amalgamated with the town.

[8] Out of some 12,000 workers on the social welfare contribution rolls working in town, only some 5,500 actually live in Lohr.

The most important industries are hydraulic machinery, electronics manufacturing as well as wood and glass processing.

In the outlying centre of Sendelbach is a school museum with the foci '"Imperial Germany" (1871-1918) and "Third Reich" (1933-1945).

Germany's smallest museum[citation needed] is to be found on Haaggasse in a former transformer hut under monument protection, it shows a variety of insulators.

Going back to a vow made during the Plague in 1666 is the Lohr custom of holding a procession each year on Saint Roch's Day (16 August) to the Valentinusberg (hill) above the town and holding festive church services there in honour of the Holy Trinity.

The town's arms are essentially those borne by the Counts of Rieneck, who were the local lords from the 13th century until 1559.

Passenger service between Lohr-Bahnhof and Lohr-Town ended on 22 May 1977, although this part of the line is still in use for occasional goods transports.

The river Main is a "Federal Waterway" (Bundeswasserstraße) of the first order, administered by the Wasser- und Schifffahrtsamt Schweinfurt [de].