The municipal area comprises the cadastral communities of Neudorf (Nova vas), Sand (Pešče), Trabenig (Trabenče), Umberg (Umbar), and Wernberg (Vernberk).

A castle near the village of Sternberg, today a ruin, was first mentioned in a deed issued at Saint Paul's Abbey about 1170/80.

Wernberg itself first appeared in a document dated 17 November 1227 determining the demolition of a Drava bridge and the transfer of Werdenberch Castle to the Carinthian estates of the Bishopric of Bamberg.

The castle, situated on a rock above the Drava river, was built under the rule of Duke Bernhard of Carinthia, it later passed to the Austrian Habsburgs.

Part of the Ossiach Abbey estates from 1672, it is since 1935 a possession of the Catholic Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood.