Obernburg lies at the mouth of the river Mümling, where it empties into the Main, at the foot of the Odenwald (range).

Between 83 and 85, the Romans constructed the Obernburg castrum, named Nemaninga, to guard the Limes Germanicus which followed the Main river here.

The stone fort, with an area of 2.9 ha and a nearly rectangular ground plan of roughly 185/188 × 160 m was oriented to the river Main.

[3]: 10 A beneficiarii station has been shown to have existed on the Limes road south of the castrum, from which numerous dedication stones have been secured.

Thereafter it belonged to the newly formed Principality of Aschaffenburg, with which it passed in 1814 (by this time it had become a department of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt) to the Kingdom of Bavaria.

Although the industrial park bears the name "Obernburg", and this is also the postal address, it actually lies exclusively within the communities of Erlenbach am Main and Elsenfeld.

Since 1990, Obernburg has been located on the Fränkischer Rotwein Wanderweg ("Franconian Red Wine Hiking Trail").

European walking route E8 runs through Obernburg, linking County Kerry in Ireland to Istanbul in Turkey.