The flat land around Rodgau is set against hillier country in the nearby Spessart, Taunus, Vogelsberg, Odenwald and Bergstraße, which all serve as recreational areas for the people.

[5] As early as 1108, Rodgau's smallest constituent community (with a population today of roughly 3,800) had a documentary mention as the location of a moated castle belonging to the Lords of Hagenhausen, in which it was named as Haginhusen.

The Hagenhausen noble family, who after moving to the Taunus began styling themselves the Lords of Eppstein, and writing many a page in mediaeval German history, found themselves holding great importance and power from the 13th century onwards.

The end of the deadly epidemic is still celebrated today every year on 16 August with a procession, whose destination was originally the Rochus-Kapelle (“Saint Roch’s Chapel”), consecrated in 1692.

Nowadays, though, the newer Rochus-Kirche (“Saint Roch’s Church”), standing at a different site in the heart of the community, serves as the procession's endpoint, and has since the late 19th century.

Saint Roch's Church houses as an art history treasure a pietà from the mid 14th century which depicts in sculpture Mary and Jesus after he has been taken down from the Cross.

The village long belonged to various owners at the same time (the Lords of Falkenstein, Hanau, Isenburg and Electoral Mainz), the odd part was bequeathed, others were traded or mortgaged (complete with inhabitants).

Between 1450 and 1736, Dudenhofen belonged to the County of Hanau-Lichtenberg and was assigned to the Amt of Babenhausen, thereby making the place as of 1550 an Evangelical enclave surrounded by Catholic neighbours.

Underneath the arms is the inscription Was unter Hessens Lust Erbprinz Wilhelm gebaut, sei Dir, o wahrer Gott, zur Pflege nun vertraut (“That built under Hesse’s desire Hereditary Prince William, be it trusted unto Thee, O true God, for its care”).

[5] The centre that is now Rodgau's biggest constituent community had its first documentary mention as early as 786 when the Rotaha Monastery was bequeathed to the Lorsch Abbey.

The name might go back to the Siedlung auf einer gerodeten Aue (“Settlement on a cleared floodplain”), but it is also likely that it comes from the Rodau, which runs through the community, and which rises in Rotliegend near Urberach.

[7] The escutcheon is divided in half by a wavy bend beginning at the upper sinister (armsbearer's left, viewer's right) side.

(Granted in 1954) The arms show a stylized image of the former moated castle that once stood on the Rodau's right bank south of the road that leads to Weiskirchen, and that was once the family seat of the Lords of Hainhausen, who were first mentioned in 1122.

(Granted in 1955) The charges in these arms, both the oak sprig and the pair of hart's horns, were chosen to recall the days when Jügesheim was part of the Wildbann (royal hunting forest).

Besides leatherworking, metalworking also locally became a field of endeavour at roughly the same time to supply belt buckles, suitcase handles and suchlike.

In the 1990s the company shifted its production focus to manufacturing porous concrete precision blocks (Plansteine), today known under the name Porit.

Since 14 December 2003, all Rodgau's constituent communities have been linked to the broad network of the Rhine-Main S-Bahn by the extension of line S1 from Wiesbaden to Ober-Roden.

The town of Rodgau is slowly finding at its disposal a network of cycle paths which are being laid out in collaboration with the Allgemeiner Deutscher Fahrrad-Club (“General German Bicycle Club”, ADFC), and which link all five constituent communities together.

Even the five forest leisure facilities offer goodly parking, as does the hiking carpark in the eastern woods on the Lange Schneise (“Long Aisle”).

The widely distributed daily newspapers Frankfurter Rundschau and Offenbach-Post contain in their editions for the Offenbach district a Rodgau local section.

Here, under planning by the Baugilde Süd (“Building Guild South”) also arose in the late 1960s several developments of compact dwellings with up to twelve floors.

Most striking in today's skyline is the development known locally as the Chinamauer (“China Wall”), a roughly 300 m-long block of maisonette flats.

A board of dedicated citizens developed a guiding image for the townsfolk whose goal is sustainability as a “roof” for economy, environment, social services, culture, one world, and so on.

On Rodgau-Weiskirchen's eastern outskirts, there has been since 1982 a conference and training centre of the Catholic International Apostolic Schönstatt Movement in the Bishopric of Mainz.

Besides 25 kindergartens, there is in Rodgau – owing in some measure to the long time during which the current constituent communities were self-administering – a broad array of different kinds of school.

Forty-nine clubs nurture the town's cultural life with many choir and orchestra concerts, readings, theatrical productions, dance tournaments, art exhibitions and workshops.

The town's cultural office yearly offers a theatre season (three subscription series) with well-known artists and the regionally noted art exhibition at the Nieder-Roden community centre.

Tropez on the Quarry Pond”, which is the nickname for the local bathing beach in the town) or Erbarme, die Hesse komme (“Have mercy, the Hessians are coming”).

Particularly worthy of mention among these is the Late Gothic Marienaltar ("Mary’s Altar") in Nieder-Roden's Catholic Matthias-Kirche, which comes from the time about 1520, and is ascribed to the Riemenschneider school.

Many dedicated citizens contribute to the further bettering of the town's appearance through donations, street festivals and hands-on work, and to the building and expansion of a civic culture.