Bad Marienberg Westerwald is a town in the Westerwaldkreis in Rhineland-Palatinate , Germany , and also the seat of the like-named Verbandsgemeinde , a kind of collective municipality. The community lies in the Westerwald between Limburg and Siegen. From east to west through the town flows the river Nister, which is part of the Sieg drainage basin.
In , Bad Marienberg had its first documentary mention. It is likely that this same source gave rise to the name Westerwald, since the area around Bad Marienberg lies directly west of Herborn. In , Marienberg was described as Mons sanctae Mariae. In the 18th century, the formerly separate communities of Obermarienberg, still an easily recognizable ring-shaped settlement around the parish church today, and Untermarienberg grew together.
Marienberg was part of the lordly domain in the Westerwald that was formed out of the three Gerichte official regions of Marienberg, Emmerichenhain and Neukirch, and which Count Otto I of Nassau won in in the Ottonian- Walramian hereditary division. From to , the overlordship in the Westerwald was then held by the Nassau-Dillenburg-Beilstein branch of the family.
After they died out, Count Johann VI of Nassau-Dillenburg "the Elder" received the inheritance, thereby uniting these German lands — albeit only for a short time. Once again, in , he succeeded in uniting all Ottonian lands within the Holy Roman Empire. Within the Orange German possessions now ruled from Dillenburg, Marienberg was at the latest by put under the Amt of Beilstein. The Counties of Sayn-Hachenburg and Sayn-Altenkirchen both lay only a few kilometres away to the northwest.
In , Marienberg went to the Duchy of Nassau. The Amt of Marienberg, which was newly organized in , comprised 43 villages and 20 estates with 1, families and 7, persons. In the course of a short-lived administrative reform, Marienberg was annexed in to the newly founded Landkreis rural district of Hachenburg, before the old arrangement was brought back into force in The last went to the newly created Westerburg district which also got the Amt of Wallmerod as well as a few places from the Amt of Selters from the Unterwesterwaldkreis in on the occasion of administrative reform.
