Münchwald is a state-recognized tourism community (Fremdenverkehrsort),[3] and with a founding date going back only as far as the time around 1700, it is also one of the district's newest municipalities.

Münchwald lies roughly halfway between Bad Kreuznach and Simmern, about 20 km from each, in the southern Hunsrück, right at the Soonwald on a plateau, some 400 m above sea level.

At New Year's 1147, long before there was any village called Münchwald, the free noble Godebold III of Weierbach promised to take part in a crusade to the Holy Land.

Since he did not keep this promise, he atoned for his sin by donating his estate, an area now within Münchwald's limits, to Bernard of Clairvaux, who then passed it on to the Cistercian Eberbach Abbey in the Rheingau (the building complex still stands near present-day Eltville).

The greatest part of the lands belonging to the monastic estate was wooded, and it had to be cleared by the monks, lay brethren and other, dependent people.

According to another document, this one handed down by the court at Spabrücken, the estate, which Eberbach Abbey had granted as a pledge to the Junker Ulrich von Leyen, was sometime between 1420 and 1476 given up.

On 27 March 1531, Eberbach Abbey sold the Stewards of Worms, called von Dalberg, its forest near Spabrücken at the edge of the Soon, called Dadenborn, with all appurtenances for 1,150 Gulden in bad money in Electoral Mainz currency, with a Gulden reckoned to be worth 24 Albus.

[6] In 1700, the Imperial lordship gave the blacksmith Mathes Hauprich from Spabrücken and Jost Klein from Lingerhahn leave to lay out two estates on the Münchwald.

They were allowed to clear and make into cropfields 60 Morgen in the so-called “forest”, which was measured out for them by the hunter and the Schultheiß of Spabrücken and by the surveyor.

For building houses, farmsteads, barns and stables, places were set aside for the two men on the Rech (a steep but short, grassy slope[7]).

It was also agreed to grant Schwikert Hermann from Lingerhahn an estate of 30 Morgen on the Münchwald along with its attendant meadows, and he, too, was to add his house to the straight line.

At the 1764 “Renovation”, for which a map was even compiled (a copy can be found at the municipal archive), properties consisted of farmyards, gardens, cropland and meadows in entailed estates held by the following: Even today, using this map and other cadastral surveys, those early settlers’ houses can be identified as ones still standing in the village now.

In 1789, Friedrich Franz Karl, Steward of Worms, Baron of and at Dalberg, Electoral Mainz Secret Counsellor, in his capacity as administrator for his cousin Karl Alexander, who held title to the Münchwald together with its estates and the people bound to them, offered Münchwald for sale to the House of Baden.

He was given the use of a cottage belonging to the Dalberg subjects that had stood empty owing to disagreements between the inhabitants of the Amt of Winterburg and the Münchwald villagers.

For 38 years Johann Adam Melsheimer lived in the Soon, about which one can still read from a stone tablet at the Haus Wingenter Struthof 11: Johann Adam Melsheimer erbaute 1723 dieses Haus als “Erbbestandenen Jäger- oder Försterhof”, der als solcher auch seinen Nachfahren bis ins 4.

Der Erbauer war von 1719 bis 1757 kurpfälzischer reitender Förster im unteren Soon und hieß nach Überlieferung und Forschung: “Der Jäger aus Kurpfalz” 21.5.1939 Die Sippe Melsheimer Johann Adam Melsheimer built this house in 1723 as a hunter's or forester's estate held in Erbbestand, which as such served his descendants down to the fourth member: Friedrich Konrad, Ägidius and Friedrich.

After the Rhineland became French, Conrad Melsheimer lost his hereditary job as forester in 1809 and the rights pertaining thereto.

Following him as a tenant was Philipp Mathias, who in 1840 was waging a legal battle with an unnamed owner, and likewise ended up having to give up his rural estate on economic grounds.

Their daughter Louise married Gebroth native Johann Adam Knötgen, from a family of potters who also plied their trade in Münchwald.

People earned their livelihoods mainly at agriculture, although there were also forestry workers and day labourers at the Gräfenbacher Hütte (ironworks).

It is likely that the most noticeable effect on the village was the steady stream of young men who were called into service in the Kaiser's forces.

Economic difficulties and the Weimar Republic's weakness made it possible for Adolf Hitler and the Nazis to seize power in 1933.

The Gleichschaltung of all political and social institutions and the permeation of everyday life with the National Socialist mindset was noticeable even in Münchwald.

In the spring of 1945, the Nahe region was occupied by American troops, but then later transferred to the French zone of occupation.

In late 1960, municipal council passed a bylaw dealing with the village's connection to the public waterworks and water contributions thereto.

After the tenant on the ground floor moved out in 1992, the municipality built the old schoolroom into a community hall with seating for 55, which is now used for festive events and as a conference room.

For bigger events and for the sport association's exercise sessions, there is the Hubertus-Halle, built in 1979, a former school pavilion belonging to the Alfred-Delp-Schule Hargesheim.

Münchwald's rising attractiveness as a residential community was accommodated by the opening of the Frauenwald new building zone in 1969.

From 1965 to 1970, Münchwald repeatedly participated in the contest Unser Dorf soll schöner werden (“Our village should become lovelier”), and even won a gold badge at the 1970 state-level competition.

The arms were introduced in this form upon municipal council's decision on 23 February 1948, later receiving approval from the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of the Interior on 4 April 1950.