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The civic arms show a milling stone, as the town was known about its mill-stone industry as well as the many mills in the area. The stone already appears in the oldest seal of the city, that dates from 1235. The arms have never changed since.
In the 17th century the arms were augmented with a helmet with a church as crest and two lions as supporters. These are at present only rarely used. Derived from this was a proposal for new arms in 1939 with only the church in the arms and not the stone.

In 851 the Benedictine Monastery of Hameln was founded at a suitable crossing place at the river Weser by a the "Imperial Abbey of Fulda" having received the estate from a Saxon Count who had died without heirs or successors.

Shortly after the monastery developed into a collegiate convent. A market colony soon established and was called "civitas" (Town) in the year 1200.

Hameln became known world-wide by the exodus of the "Hämelschen Kinder" (children of Hameln) in 1284 from which later on the Pied Piper’s Legend developed.

From 1426 –1572 Hameln was a member of the "Hansa League". In the 16th century Hameln’s rich merchants competed with the landed gentry and constructed splendid buildings in the Weser Renaissance style.

In 1664 Hameln was developed as the strongest fortress of the Hanoverian principality becoming known as the "Gibraltar of the North".

In 1808 Napoleon I. ordered the fortress to be destroyed thus allowing the town to expand.

In 1867 Hameln became Prussian. In 1872 Hameln was connected to the railway line Hanover–Altenbeken. In addition to the traditional milling industry the first carpet weaving factory was established.

In 1968 a total restoration of the old town centre was started and completed in 1992.

Pied piper legend - It was the year 1284 when a strange and wondrous figure arrived in Hameln. He was attired in a coat of many colours and pretending to be a rat catcher he promised to free the town of a plague of rats and mice for a fixed sum of money.

The citizens pledged to pay him his fee, so the visitor produced a pipe and began to play. And soon all the rats and mice came running out of the houses and gathered around the Pied Piper in a teeming mass. Once convinced that each and every one followed, he went out of the town straight into the River Weser where the vermin plunged after him and drowned.

The townspeople, however, now freed of the plague, regretted their promise and refused to pay the Piper who left Hameln in a bitter mood.

On the 26th of June in that year he returned, this time dressed as a huntsman, with a grim visage, a wondrous red hat. While the townsfolk were assembled in the church, he again sounded his pipe in the streets. The "Legend of the children’s Exodus" was later connected to the "Legend of expelling the rats". This most certainly refers to the rat plagues being a great threat in the milling town Hameln in medieval times and the more or less successful professional "rat catchers".

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