Kinský; German: Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau) is a prominent Bohemian noble family originating in the Kingdom of Bohemia.

During the Thirty Years' War, the Kinsky family rose from minor nobles to comital rank (1628) and later princely status (1747) under the rule of the Habsburgs.

According to romantic medieval legend, the Kinsky story began in Bohemia over 1,000 years ago, when a king's beautiful daughter went out hunting in the forest and was attacked by a pack of wolves.

In gratitude, the girl's father ennobled the young man, granting him a coat of arms featuring three wolves' teeth as an emblem of his bravery.

Through his marriage with Alžběta (Elisabeth) Trčka of Lípa, he was a brother-in-law of the Imperial generalissimo Albrecht von Wallenstein, with whom he was assassinated at Cheb in 1634.

They employed (between 1713 and 1716) the celebrated architect Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt to build their residence Palais Kinsky in Vienna, which remained in the family's ownership until 1987.

In 1723, Emperor Charles VI ordered the Kinsky family to develop their stud farms and breed horses of such quality as to provide superior mounts for the officers of the elite cavalry regiments of the empire.