Kempen – Middle-order Centre on the Lower Rhine

The area of Kempen was recorded around 890 as "Campunni" in the tax registers of the Benedictine Werden Abbey. From the turn of the millennium a rural settlement grew around an estate of the Archbishop of Cologne; the oldest surviving document dates from 1186. Kempen received town rights in the 13th century, market rights in 1372, and the Electoral-Cologne castle was built between 1396 and 1400. In the late Middle Ages about 2000 people lived in the town, among them the mystic Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380–1471). An Anabaptist congregation existed here during the Reformation.

From the 16th century a decline set in: in 1579 the plague killed almost half of the inhabitants, and in 1642 during the Thirty Years' War Kempen was besieged and occupied by Hessian troops after the battle on the Kempener Heide. In 1794 French revolutionary troops annexed the left bank of the Rhine; in 1798 Kempen became the chief town of the Canton Kempen in the Département de la Roer. At the Congress of Vienna the Rhineland largely passed to Prussia, and in 1816 Kempen became the seat of the Kempen district, supported among other things by the Krefeld–Kleve railway line. On 7 February 1859 the town received the Rhenish municipal code.

After the First World War Belgian troops occupied the town; in 1929 the district was reorganised as the Kempen-Krefeld district. During the Nazi era the synagogue on Umstraße was set on fire during the Night of Broken Glass, and on 10 December 1941 124 Jews from the district were deported to the Riga ghetto. Between 1943 and 1945 Kempen suffered several air raids; an attack on 10 February 1945 killed 90 people, and on 3 March US troops moved in.

From 1966 the old town was restored. On 1 January 1970 Schmalbroich, St. Hubert and Tönisberg were incorporated into Kempen; Hüls belonged to it from 1970 to 1974 before being transferred to Krefeld. With the district reform Kempen lost its district seat to Viersen on 1 January 1975, and in 1994 it marked its 700th anniversary. In Tönisberg stands Shaft 4 of the former Niederberg colliery, sunk in 1959, whose box-frame headframe has been under monument protection since 2015.

The Electoral-Cologne castle, built from 1396 to 1400 at the instigation of Cologne archbishop Friedrich III of Saarwerden, was converted into a palace in 1634 by the insertion of large windows. With its three towers it stands in a park with old sweet chestnut trees and housed the district and town archive from 1984 to 2022; the interior is not open to tourists. The town's core is the concentric old town, once enclosed by a largely preserved rampart and moat; street names ending in "-wall" and "-graben" recall this. After a reorientation in the 1970s, the lanes with old townhouses and half-timbered buildings were largely turned into a pedestrian zone; the sculpture "Kappesbauern" stands on the Buttermarkt.

Regarding churches, a decision was made in 2026 to close two of the three Catholic churches, leaving only the provostry church of St. Marien; the number of service attendees fell from 2,400 per week in 2000 to 200 to 300. St. Marien preserves historical carvings, three Antwerp retables and paintings. The former Franciscan monastery, originally built from 1627 to 1630 and in its present form from 1746 to 1748, houses the Kramer Museum, the town library and the Thomas Archive and is connected to the Paterskirche, completed in 1640, which has been used since 1979 as a museum of Lower Rhine sacred art and as a concert venue. The Holy Spirit Chapel of 1421 was repurposed in 2005 as a religious bookshop.

The town fortifications include the tower mill of 1481, the Kuhtor of about 1350 in the north and the Peterturm from the late 15th century in the south. In the districts there are the fortified tower Berfes in St. Hubert, the post windmill in Tönisberg and the manor houses Haus Velde and Haus Steinfunder in Schmalbroich; south of the town lies the Romanesque St. Peter chapel.

The St. Martin's procession has been held annually on 10 November since 1884 and is among the largest in Germany: children walk through the old town with torches and lanterns, fireworks are set off from the castle towers, and each child receives a St. Martin's bag at the town hall. Every three years there is the Rose Monday procession of the carnival association 1914 e. V., annually the old-town run and the "Rund um die Burg" cycling race on the first Sunday in October, which was cancelled for the first time in 2007 due to doping allegations. There are also, among others, a Christmas market, a craftsmen's market, an after-work market and the old-town festival, which is linked with the International Highland Games.

From 1945 to 1999, Kempen's administrative leadership was divided under the North German council constitution: the mayor served in an honorary capacity, while a town director headed the full-time administration. The town directors included August Färvers (1945–1947), the long-serving Klaus Hülshoff (1960–1990), who became an honorary citizen of the town, and Karl Hensel (1990–1999). With the transition to a single administrative head in 1999, the former town director Hensel became the full-time mayor.

For decades the CDU shaped the mayoral office. After Hensel (1999–2009), Volker Rübo (CDU) led the town from 2009 to 2020. In the 2014 council election the CDU reached 45.99 percent, followed by the SPD with 24.62 percent, the Greens with 13.30 percent and the FDP with 6.46 percent; the Free Voters Kempen gained 5.24 percent, the Left 3.46 percent and the NPD 0.94 percent. Voter turnout was 56.51 percent. Rübo was confirmed in office with 50.85 percent, and the number of council seats rose from 40 to 44.

The 2020 local election marked a turning point. The CDU fell to 39.47 percent, while the Greens rose to 22.45 percent. The SPD reached 18.12 percent, the FDP 8.46 percent, the Free Voters 3.84 percent, the ÖDP-BIKK, running for the first time, 3.03 percent, the Left 2.14 percent, and the AfD, with 328 votes, 1.93 percent; like the ÖDP-BIKK, it entered the council with one seat. The number of seats was increased to 50. In the runoff, Christoph Dellmanns, nominated by the Greens and the SPD, prevailed with 51.34 percent against Philipp Kraft (CDU, 48.66 percent). In the council election of 14 September 2025, Dellmanns was confirmed in office with 89.03 percent of the valid votes.

Kempen maintains four town twinnings: with Wambrechies in the Département Nord (since 1972) and Orsay in the Département Essonne (since 1973) in France, with the East Cambridgeshire District around Ely in the United Kingdom (since 1978), and with Werdau in Germany (since 1990). In addition, there are friendly ties with the municipality of Minheim on the Moselle.

The town coat of arms shows a continuous black beam cross together with a pair of blue keys, a golden waxing half-moon and a six-pointed golden star. The oldest town seal, from 1305, already bore the crescent moon, star and two keys; the motif first appears as a coat of arms in 1486. The cross refers to the sovereignty of the Cologne archbishop and elector, the keys to Saint Peter, and the moon and crescent to Mary as patron saint of the parish church. The banner is striped lengthwise in blue and red in a 1:1 ratio, with the escutcheon above the centre.