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The first settlers in the Gottschee region arrived around 1330, the municipalities operating under the rule of South German Law.
The region came to be part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, known as Krain, until the treaties of 1919 which concluded the First World War. At this point, Gottschee, or Kocevje, became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
In 1941, as part of the population movement of over 31 million people in East Central Europe associated with World War II, Germany and Italy signed a bilateral treaty by which 15,000 Gottschee Germans were resettled in recently acquired areas of the Third Reich. This was part of a general Reich policy of resettling Volksdeutsche within the Reich.
Following World War II, the Gottschee area became part of the country of Yugoslavia, and on December 23, 1990, part of the Republic of Slovenia.
