The county was created in 1342, after the subdivision of the County of Werdenberg. In 1396 it was granted the imperial immediacy (German: Reichsunmittelbarkeit). After the line of succession of the Counts of Vaduz expired in 1416, the territory was bought in a feud from the Barons of Brandis, which maintained their sovereignty until 1507, when the county passed to the Counts of Sulz, who acquired the northern and bordering Lordship of Schellenberg.
In 1613 both territories, while remaining distinct, were sold to the counts of Hohenems. Ferdinand Karl von Hohenems (1650–1686), for undue appropriation and excessive witch-hunt, was deprived of his dominions in 1684 by the Emperor Leopold I. The emperor assigned Ferdinand Karl's former possessions to his younger brother, Count Jakob Hannibal III (1653–1730). To pay his debts and recover Hohenems itself, Jakob Hannibal was forced to sell the Lordship (in 1699), and the County (in 1712), to Hans-Adam I, Prince of Liechtenstein.[3][4] With these territories, in 1719 the prince gained from the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI the right to found a single state, the present Principality of Liechtenstein.[5]
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