Kamen features attractive residential areas. Thanks to a well-planned and careful development, Kamen’s residential areas and population centres feature facilities that cover basic requirements and provide a wide range of services that live up to the highest expectations. A diverse and balanced range of retail facilities to cover short-, medium- and long-term requirements characterises the supply structure in Kamen’s town centre and districts, in addition to consumer markets with a supraregional catchment area.

Kamen provides first-rate medical facilities, such as the 221-bed Municipal Hellmig Hospital with its state-of-the-art technical equipment.

Kamen’s range of educational facilities features all types of schools. The municipal music school, adult education centre with its wide range of courses, a comprehensive library, and the Town History House with its archive and museum complement the educational landscape. There are enough nursery and day care places for every child in Kamen, the town having complied since 1997 with the legal entitlement to a nursery place for every child.

Kamen’s wide range of local recreation and leisure activities includes sports and leisure facilities, as well as an excellent network of cycling and hiking routes.

First evidence of a settlement on Kamen territory dates back to the Neolithic era (5000-2000 BC). A large number of stone tools was discovered at the border between the Wasserkurl and Unna-Massen districts. During the first centuries of our calendar, there was a Germanic settlement west of the Seseke-Körne influx. The residents of this significant settlement maintained intense trade relations with the Romans. They produced their own metal and ceramic objects, and the largest building was 48 metres long.

The village of Methler was first mentioned in 898 in a deed of donation.
First mentioned around 1050, Kamen featured significantly among the Mark county towns and came second after their capital, Hamm. The sovereign princes, the Counts von der Mark, had a castle built at a Seseke crossing place, where the town developed over the years.

The Hanseatic town of Kamen was renowned for its leather and linen products. Kamen’s foreign trade merchants operated in all important Hanseatic towns of the Baltic provinces. Kamen received town ordinances and privileges in 1346 and had its own convent between 1470 and 1818.

Kamen lost significance with the decline of the Hanseatic League towards the end of the 15th century, followed by over 400 years of stagnation. The construction of the Cologne-Minden railway in 1847 brought a slow economic revival, which was intensified by the launch of the Monopol colliery in 1873.
The number of Kamen’s residents had tripled by 1910, and today’s districts also became involved in the mining industry, with miners’ estates being built in Methler and Heeren-Werve. After 110 years, Kamen’s mining tradition came to an end.
As part of a municipal restructuring process, the formerly independent districts of Derne, Heeren-Werve, Methler (including Wasserkurl and Westick), Rotturn and Südkamen merged with the town of Kamen.