The town is located in the hills of the North Eifel, within the Hohes Venn � Eifel Nature Park in the narrow valley of the Rur river.
The historic town center has many preserved half-timbered houses and narrow streets have remained nearly unchanged for 300 years, making the town a popular tourist attraction nowadays. An open-air, classical music festival is staged annually at Burg Monschau. Historically, the main industry of the town was cloth-mills
