Due to the continuous lineage of the dynasty until the present time, it is considered to be one of the longest-lived noble families in Germany and Europe.

The first ancestor was mentioned in 1153 as Conrad, Lord of Weikersheim, where the family had the Geleitrecht (right of escorting travellers and goods and charging customs) along the Tauber river on the trading route between Frankfurt and Augsburg until the 14th century.

The latter used Hohenlohe ("Albertus de Hohenloch") as his name for the first time in 1178 which is derived from the no longer existing Hohlach Castle near Simmershofen in Middle Franconia.

However, Hohlach soon lost its importance; the family's holdings were expanded from Weikersheim, which is located about 20 km further west, southwards to form the county of Hohenlohe.

The dynasty's influence was soon perceptible between the Franconian valleys of the Kocher, Jagst and Tauber rivers, an area that was to be called the Hohenlohe Plateau.

His grandsons, Gottfried and Conrad, supporters of Emperor Frederick II, founded the lines of Hohenlohe-Hohenlohe and Hohenlohe-Brauneck in 1230, the names taken from their respective castles.

During the Interregnum the Hohenlohe sided with the Prince-Bishopric of Würzburg and defeated the count of Henneberg and his coalition at the Battle of Kitzingen gaining Uffenheim in the aftermath.

The branch of Hohenlohe-Brauneck received Jagstberg Castle (near Mulfingen) as af fief from the Bishop of Würzburg around 1300, which later came to various other feudal holders, but repeatedly also back to the House of Hohenlohe.

After decades of, sometimes armed, conflict, the Hohenlohe gave up their claim to Ziegenhain in favor of the Hessian landgrave in a settlement with financial compensation in 1495.

The Hohenlohes were Imperial Counts having two voices in the Diet (or Assembly, called Kreistag) of the Franconian Circle.

The existing branches of the Hohenlohe family are descended from the lines of Hohenlohe-Neuenstein and Hohenlohe-Waldenburg, established in 1551 by Ludwig Kasimir (d. 1568) and Eberhard (d. 1570), the sons of Count Georg I (d.

After the extinction of two other protestant side lines, Waldenburg in 1679 and Waldenburg-Pfedelbach in 1728, the whole property of the main branch Hohenlohe-Waldenburg was inherited by the catholic counts.

Frederick Louis, Prince of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, had acquired the estates of Slawentzitz, Ujest and Bitschin in Silesia by marriage in 1782, an area of 108 square miles, where his grandson Hugo zu Hohenlohe-Öhringen, Duke of Ujest, established calamine mines and founded one of the largest zinc smelting plants in the world.

His son, prince Christian Kraft (1848–1926), sold the plants and went almost bankrupt with a fund in which he had invested in 1913; the mines he had still kept were depropriated by communist Poland in 1945.

[5] The four catholic lines which still exist today (with their heads styled Fürst) are those of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst (at Schillingsfürst), Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst (at Waldenburg), Hohenlohe-Jagstberg (at Haltenbergstetten) and Hohenlohe-Bartenstein (at Bartenstein).

A side branch of the House of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst inherited the dukedom of Ratibor in Silesia in 1834, together with the principality of Corvey in Westphalia.

[12] In 1772, the Holy Roman Emperor elevated possessions of the Neuenstein and Langenburg lines to the status of Imperial Principality.