The area in pre-Roman times belonged to the Celtic kingdom of Noricum. In Roman Times the region around Rohrau was part of the Roman province of Pannonia; Rohrau is near Carnuntum, a former Roman settlement and fort now called Petronell/Carnuntum. Rohrau grew along an old road next to river Leitha connecting Carnuntum to the next bridge crossing the river at Bruck an der Leitha, which is today the district capital. In the Middle Ages a castle was built, surrounded by a moat; later it was converted to a chateau; its facade as seen today is in the "Josephinian Style", a late and very rare Baroque style that only was used during the reign of Emperor Joseph II in the late 18th century. The chateau has been owned by the Counts of Harrach since 1524 and contains the largest private collection of Dutch oil paintings in Austria.
In the 16th century Rohrau was given the right to hold a market; the village has since then been called a Marktgemeinde; 'market community'.
In the early 18th century the town was plagued by attacks from the Kuruczes, described by Geiringer as "the peasant army of the anti-Habsburg Hungarian party". In 1704 they plundered the town, burning homes, and returned to do the same in 1706; a further attack took place in 1707. A resident who lost his house to the flames in both 1704 and 1706 was Lorenz Koller (born 1675), who was the Marktrichter (roughly, mayor) of the town and the maternal grandfather of Joseph Haydn (see below).
Rohrau as former border town
Rohrau, situated on the River Leitha, is a former border village. Currently, it stands in the Austrian state of Lower Austria, just across the river from the neighbouring state of Burgenland. The latter was part of Hungary until 1921. Rohrau once had a border checkpoint at the bridge crossing the river to what was then Hungary (this checkpoint is now a farmhouse). This border was not international, since Austria and Hungary where both part of the same Empire of
