The town is located at the foot of the Kočevski Rog karst plateau on the Rinža River in the historic Lower Carniola region.

Older discredited explanations include derivation from the hypothetical common noun *kočevje 'nomadic settlement' and Slovene koča 'shack'.

[3] In 1247 Berthold, Patriarch of Aquileia, granted the area around Ribnica within the imperial March of Carniola to the Carinthian counts of Ortenburg.

When the counts had received further estates in 1336 on the wooded plateau down to Kostel on the Kolpa River from the hands of Patriarch Bertram, they called for German-speaking settlers from Carinthia and Tyrol.

The parish church in the town is dedicated to Saint Bartholomew (Slovene: Sveti Jernej) and belongs to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Novo Mesto.