Sankt Goar (German pronunciation: [ˌsaŋktˈɡoː.aʁ]) is a town on the west bank of the Middle Rhine in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis (district) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

Sankt Goar is well known for its central location in the Rhine Gorge, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since July 2002.

Goar came as a young clergyman (actually, a monk) from Aquitaine in the southwest of France and at first lived as a hermit in a cave on the Rhine.

Frankish King Pepin the Younger transferred the hospice and chapel in 765 to the Abbot of the Benedictine Prüm Abbey as a personal benefice.

On 1 November 1527, Adam Krafft, who would later be a professor of theology, began to introduce the Reformation on a mission from Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse.

His youngest son, Philip II, Landgrave of Hesse-Rheinfels, was awarded the Lower County of Katzenelnbogen, and thereby the castle and the town.

In 1598, Franz Schmoll built the Rheinfels-Apotheke in Sankt Goar, only the third apothecary in Hesse, after the ones in Kassel and Marburg.

As a result of a longstanding dispute between Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Darmstadt over the partitioning of the Landgraviate of Hesse, the latter had Burg Rheinfels and Sankt Goar besieged for several weeks in the summer of 1626 with help from Imperial troops.

On 14 April 1648, George II, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt ceded the Lower County of Katzenelnbogen along with Sankt Goar “in perpetuity” to Hesse-Kassel.

While Hesse-Kassel was under Imperial law the rightful landholder, lordship over the Lower County of Katzenelnbogen passed to Landgrave Ernst I, who on 30 March 1649 made his entrance into Sankt Goar and founded the Hesse-Rheinfels(-Rotenburg) line.

Landgrave Ernst ruled until his death in 1693 at Burg Rheinfels, his comital residence, as one who was tolerant in matters of religion, and one who took great interest in his office, contributing considerably to Sankt Goar's economic growth, something the town sorely needed after the ravages that it had sustained in the Thirty Years' War.

In mid March 1945, American troops reached the town and occupied it, although occupational authority was transferred, once again, to the French in early July.

[1] The German blazon reads: Im geteilten Schild oben in Gold ein blaubewehrter roter Löwe (heraldisch Leopard), unten hinter einem goldenen Gitter goldene Lilien auf blauen Feld.

The charge in the upper part of the escutcheon is the heraldic emblem formerly borne by the Counts of Katzenelnbogen, who ruled Sankt Goar from the 13th century.

The lilies in the lower part of the escutcheon refer to Saint Mary's patronage of Darmstadt, the centre of the Upper County of Katzenelnbogen.

After it had been expanded into a fort, it was the biggest defensive complex in the Rhine Gorge and set the standard for castle building throughout the Empire.

In the late 18th century, French Revolutionary troops destroyed the fort, after which the complex was used as a stone quarry for other building work.

Worth seeing are Saint Goar's Late Gothic tomb slab and a retable from 1480, which is among the most valuable works of Middle-Rhine painting.

[10] Sankt Goar's vineyards lie in the winemaking subregion of Rheinburgengau within the Middle Rhine wine region.

The local winemaking appellation – Großlage – that belongs to this subregion comprises four smaller operations – Einzellagen – around Sankt Goar.

[11] In German linguistics, the Sankt Goar Line is an isogloss separating dialects to the north from those to the south.

Sankt Goar is linked to the Autobahn A 61 (Ludwigshafen-Mönchengladbach) by Landesstraße (State Road) 213, which leads to the Emmelshausen interchange (no.

Sankt Goar has landing stages on the Rhine for various companies that run ships on the river, among them the Köln-Düsseldorfer line.