Nearby is the tripoint with the Swiss border; in the west, a road leads into the Sesvenna Alps and to Martina in the Lower Engadin valley.

Over the centuries, numerous conflicts arose in the border area of the Tyrolean lands, held by the Austrian House of Habsburg from 1363, with the Swiss Confederacy, culminating in the Swabian War of 1499.

Nauders, then part of the Tyrolean Vinschgau region in the south was administered from Naudersberg Castle, a medieval fortress erected in the early 14th century.

Finstermünz finally lost its function when a new mountain road up to the Nauders high valley was laid out according to plans by Karl von Ghega in 1854.

At the end of World War II, numerous Nazi officials such as Eduard Roschmann and Oswald Menghin fled on a ratline through Nauders and Reschen Pass to escape arrest.