The House of Auersperg is an Austrian princely family, which held estates in Austria and Thengen (located in southern Baden-Württemberg, Germany, north of Schaffhausen, Switzerland.) The princely family of Auersperg was a junior branch of the house of Counts of Auersperg from Carniola, one of the hereditary Habsburg duchies and what is now in Slovenia. It was elevated to princely rank in 1653 and after their purchase of Tengen they became immediate Princes of the Holy Roman Empire. The princes of Auersperg also held at various times the duchies of Silesia-Münsterberg and Gottschee. Their territories were mediatised by Austria and Baden in 1806.