The first human traces go back to the Urn Culture, about 1000 years before our era. Evidence of this is a bronze tool found in 1963 near the Feistritz spring. During the construction of the railway in 1873, a burial mound with grave goods was discovered near the village of Tscherberg. Further cremation graves from the Hallstatt period were found in 1885. In 1952, traces of a fortified settlement from the 7th to 5th century BC were discovered on Katharinakogel. The oldest gold ever found in Carinthia was discovered on Katharinakogel in the summer of 1999. Already in the 1st century AD there was a Roman road here on the Petzen slope, which is still clearly visible today. Many finds in Unterlibitsch, Hof and Pirkdorf indicate the presence of the Romans. Feistritz/Bistrica (= place by the stream) is mentioned for the first time in a document from 1261, which mentions a knightly ministerial "Fridericus de Veustricz" - appointed by the Heinburgs to their estates in Feistritz. In September 1473 there was the first invasion of the Turks, who set up their main camp in Pirkdorf (near today's Buschenschank Tschaitschmann vlg. Schatter). This was followed in 1480 by invasions by the Hungarians.

With the referendum in 1920, there were also some changes in the boundaries of the municipality. In 1921, for example, the municipality of Feistritz ob Bleiburg received the parts of the municipality of Schwarzenbach/Crna that had not fallen to Yugoslavia (today Slovenia), nine houses of the municipality of Mießberg (today Rischberg) with 41 inhabitants and extensive forest areas on the northern slope of the Petzen. The municipality was not visible on the map for almost two decades. The "marriage" with Bleiburg, which was enforced by the state at the time, was finally "divorced" by decree of the Carinthian state government on 31 December 1990 on the basis of the result of a referendum. Feistritz-Bistrica thus became an independent municipality in the district of Völkermarkt.

NOTICE:
The following data and content were created with the utmost care. However, the market town of Feistritz ob Bleiburg cannot guarantee the accuracy and completeness of the information.

Petzen mountain railroads:

Automotive industry:

As a supplier to the automotive industry, MAHLE Filtersysteme Austria GmbH manufactures fuel filters, oil filter modules, and air filter systems and is one of the largest employers in the Lower Carinthia region at its location in St. Michael ob Bleiburg. BMTS Technology Austria GmbH & Co KG is a supplier in the field of exhaust gas turbochargers, hybrid technology and autonomous driving.

The entire market community of Feistritz ob Bleiburg / Bistrica nad Pliberkom is a bilingual community in the sense of the Ethnic Groups Act 1976. In the 1910 census, 99.1% of the population of Feistritz stated "Slovene" as their colloquial language. In the last census in 2001, 33% professed the Slovene language and 67% stated "German" as their colloquial language. In the 1920 referendum, 64.7% (653 votes) voted for annexation to Southern Slavia. In addition to ethnicity, economic considerations were also decisive. For centuries, however, these two ethnic groups have by and large lived and worked peacefully together, mutually enriching each other through economy and culture. Today, all place names in the municipality are bilingual. The primary school and the kindergarten are also multilingual.

Am 03. Juli 2008 beschloß der Kärntner Landtag, dass die Gemeinde Feistritz ob Bleiburg mit Wirkung vom 30. August 2008 das Recht zur Führung der Bezeichnung Marktgemeinde hat. 

Die Erhebnung zur Marktgemeinde erfolgte in Anerkennung der historischen, kulturellen, wirtschaftlichen sowie der touristischen Entwicklung und der über die Grenzen der Gemeinde hinausreichenden zentralörtlichen Bedeutung.