It breaks out of the basin through the Thuringian Gate west of Heldrungen and, in its lower reaches, flows through Saxony-Anhalt before emptying into the Saale near Naumburg.

The well-known brand of sparkling wine, Rotkäppchen ("Little Red Riding Hood") is produced in the cellars of Freyburg.

In 933 the German king Henry I fought, after a ten-year truce, against a Hungarian army in the Battle of Riade, a place near the Unstrut, but which is now unknown.

One of his favourite places was Memleben on the Unstrut, where a royal residence, a so-called Pfalz, palatium or villa regia, was built.

From 1889, when the Unstrut Railway (Unstrutbahn), was built alongside the river, the significance of the waterway as a transport route was much reduced.