The community was named after the German city called Offenburg between the Black Forest and the River Rhine, the place where its early settlers originated from.
On December 3, 2008, a Munich, Germany court ruled that the guitar solo on the title track was plagiarized from a 1974 instrumental recording called "Nordrach" (named after Nordrach, a small river in the central Black Forest ) by the German progressive rock band Jud's Gallery from Offenburg.
Nadine Poss (born 1991), from Windesheim in the German wine region of Nahe, was chosen as the 65th German Wine Queen on 13 Sep 2013 in Offenburg, as the successor to Julia Bertram from the Ahr wine region.
Offenburg district already had a city partnership with Altenburg so, after German reunification in 1990, Ortenaukreis chose to help modernize the Altenburger Land administration to the West German standard.
A common resolution to create the Strasbourg-Ortenau Eurodistrict was signed on 24 May 2003 in Offenburg by Fabienne Keller, the mayor of Strasbourg, Robert Grossmann, the president of the Communauté urbaine de Strasbourg, the mayors of Kehl, Offenburg, Achern, Lahr and Oberkirch as well as the President (Landrat) of the Ortenau district.