It links the market town of Kötschach-Mauthen in the Carinthian Gail Valley with the Paluzza municipality in the Carnia region of Friuli.

The valley of the Gail River had been a settlement area since the Neolithic era, and a bridle path probably existed already in the Bronze Age.

Roman forces under General Tiberius rebuilt the path as a road after the incorporation of the Noricum province in 15 BC, in order to reach the newly conquered lands north of the Carnic Alps from Italy.

The well constructed road was in use throughout the Middle Ages as part of the trade route between Aquileia and Salzburg, also after the Carnia region in the south was conquered by the Republic of Venice in 1420.

Upon the 1809 Treaty of Schönbrunn, Napoleonic troops crossed the Plöcken Pass to occupy the Upper Carinthian lands around Villach, which had been ceded to the French Empire as part of the Illyrian Provinces.