The land within municipal limits exhibits a variable topography, with heights ranging from 240 to 400 m above sea level.

Also belonging to Oberstaufenbach is the outlying homestead of Birkenhof, which was built in 1965 as an Aussiedlerhof, an agricultural settlement whose goal was to enhance food production.

In Weilerbach, the house's builder had acquired bits of the former Schellenberger Hof, among other things the stones from the gateway arch, when that estate was torn down.

He set the keystone, which bears the von Horn coat of arms, in the walling in his house's gable.

In bygone centuries, the municipal area was a tangle of crisscrossing property lines, with often very small fields.

Sometime in the Early Middle Ages, a castle complex was built, in which the available Roman grave monuments would have been used.

Back then, Oberstaufenbach was considered part of the Amt of Deinsberg (Theißberg) am Glan, where the parochial seat could also be found.

[8][9] In 1543, the Amt area, now described as the Jettenbacher Gericht (“court”), was grouped into the then newly formed Principality of Veldenz-Lauterecken.

[10] During the time of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era that followed, the German lands on the Rhine’s left bank were annexed by France.

Oberstaufenbach now belonged to the Mairie (“Mayoralty”) of Bosenbach, the Canton of Wolfstein, the Arrondissement of Kaiserslautern and the Department of Mont-Tonnerre (or Donnersberg in German).

After the French were driven out in 1814, the Congress of Vienna established a new political order in post-Napoleonic Europe.

In 1816, after a transitional time, Oberstaufenbach was grouped into the bayerischer Rheinkreis, later known as Rheinpfalz (“Rhenish Palatinate”), an exclave of the Kingdom of Bavaria.

More locally, Oberstaufenbach was grouped into the Bürgermeisterei (“Mayoralty”) of Neunkirchen, the Canton of Wolfstein and the Landkommissariat of Kusel.

The municipality received a subsidy covering 87% of the cost of rearranging properties, which resulted in, among other things, the utter obliteration of the old network of paths and the laying out of a whole new one.

Roughly 5 km of farm lanes were paved with blacktop and a footpath and cycle path was built from Oberstaufenbach to Niederstaufenbach.

Rather, it would seem, going by archaeological finds, to be a castle complex from the High Middle Ages, the 11th and 12th centuries, but whatever nobles owned it is quite unknown.

In the latter half of the 20th century, there was for a short while considerable growth in population figures fostered by the village's favourable location near both Kusel and Kaiserslautern.

Prefixed to this is the syllable stauf—, from the Middle High German word Stouf, defined as “towering rock, comparable to an upended beaker without a bottom”.

This towering mountain knoll was described as a Stouf in earlier times, giving the village part of its name.

When in 1588 John I, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken completed the changeover to the Reformed faith, the Neunkirchen congregation, which was a Veldenz holding, had to hire their own pastor.

Indeed, in the Veldenz Amt of Reichenbach, the inhabitants remained Lutheran throughout the time from the Reformation to the Union of the two Protestant denominations in the early 19th century.

Disagreements with the building authorities resulted in a partial dismantling of this chapel, which stands on the village's outskirts.

[1] The German blazon reads: Unter silbernem Schildhaupt, darin ein blauer Wellenbalken, in schwarz ein rotbewehrter, -bezungter und -bekrönter goldener Löwe vor einem aus dem rechten Schildrand hervorkommenden goldenen Stufenfelsen.

The crags and the wavy fess on the chief are canting charges for the municipality's name, Stauf being an archaic word for “crag” in German (the usual word is Fels or Felsen), and the wavy fess standing for a brook, or in German, Bach.

If one goes through the village towards Reichenbach, one first comes to the Bismarcklinde, which was planted in the former Imperial President’s honour (he had been dismissed from office six years earlier by Kaiser Wilhelm II).

[21] The local customs are the ones that are generally found in the Westrich, an historic region that encompasses areas in both Germany and France.

Worthy of note for being among the village's few craft businesses are the family Engel's smithy and locksmith’s shop.

This leads by the Potzberg's peak and links Oberstaufenbach with the Glan near Gimsbach, an outlying centre of Matzenbach.

[27] The village lies a mere 15 km from Ramstein Air Base, and these personnel make up twenty-five percent of Oberstaufenbach's population.

He enjoyed worldwide fame, bearing witness to which was his engagement at the age of 31 as a violin soloist at Bayreuth’s Festspielhaus.