Hachenburg is a town in the Westerwaldkreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
The town lies in the Westerwald between Koblenz and Siegen, roughly 10 km west of Bad Marienberg on the river Nister. Hachenburg is the administrative seat of the Verbandsgemeinde of Hachenburg, a kind of collective municipality (See Verbandsgemeinde).
The castle (Schloss), former seat of the Counts of Sayn, was founded about 1180 by Count Heinrich II of Sayn.
Building was finished in 1212 under Count Heinrich III, the founder’s son, who was also mentioned as the town’s and the castle’s first owner. At the same time, under the Count’s overlordship, came the building of the neighbouring Marienstatt Cistercian Monastery.
In 1314, Hachenburg, whose name comes from a castle hill protected by thornbushes, was granted town rights. The original settlement lay not on the 390-m-high castle hill, but rather some 1.5 km away in the dale about 100 m lower through which runs the Rothbach, on the site of what is now the…