Fürstenberg is the name of a Swabian noble house in Germany, based primarily in what is today southern Baden-Württemberg near the source of the Danube river.
Numerous members of the family have risen to prominence over the centuries as soldiers, churchmen, diplomats, and academics. Sometimes the name is gallicized as de Furstenberg or anglicized as Furstenberg.
Fürstenberg was a county of the Holy Roman Empire in Swabia, present-day southern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The county emerged when count Egino IV of Urach by marriage inherited large parts of the Duchy of Zähringen upon the death of Duke Berthold V in 1218, and was originally called the county of Freiburg. Egino's grandson Count Henry started naming himself after his residence at Fürstenberg Castle around 1250.
Urach Castle
The county was partitioned in 1284 between itself and the lower county of Dillingen, and then again in 1408 between Fürstenberg-Fürstenberg and Fürstenberg-Wolfach. Over the centuries, the various counts and Princes expanded their territories to include the Landgraviate of Baar, the Lordships of Gundelfingen, Hausen, Heiligenberg, Höwen, and Meßkirch, and the Landgraviate of Stühlingen in Germany; as well as estates around Křivoklát Castle (German: Pürglitz), Bohemia, Tavíkovice (German: Taikowitz) in Moravia, and from 1733 Lány.