The House of Auersperg is an Austrian princely family, which once held estates in the Holy Roman Empire. The princely family of Auersperg originated as a junior branch of the comital line of Auersperg from Carniola, one of the hereditary Habsburg duchies in what is now Slovenia. The Auerspergs were raised to princely status in 1653, and they became "immediate" princes of the Holy Roman Empire in 1664. The princes of Auersperg also held at various times the duchies of Münsterberg and Gottschee. Their territories were mediatised by Austria and Baden in 1806, and the family is counted as high nobility.

Gottschee refers to a former German-speaking region in Carniola, a crownland of the Habsburg Empire, part of the historical and traditional region of Lower Carniola, now in Slovenia. The region has been a county, duchy, district, and municipality during various parts of its history. The term often also refers to the entire ethnolinguistic enclave regardless of administrative borders. Today Gottschee largely corresponds to the Municipality of Kočevje. The original German settlers of the region are called Gottschee Germans or Gottscheers, and their German dialect is called Gottschee German or Gottscheerish.