Rüdesheim lies in the transitional zone between Rhenish Hesse and the Hunsrück at the mouth of the Katzenbach, where it empties into the Ellerbach, itself a tributary to the Nahe.

[4] The village is found some 4 km west of the district seat of Bad Kreuznach, with which it has all but grown together into one built-up area.

There is disagreement over where the village's current name comes from, with suggestions such as Rudersheim or Rodersheim (the former an apparent reference to rowing, and the latter to land clearing).

During the Thirty Years' War, the village had to deal with military requisitions, plundering and deliberately set blazes.

Schinderhannes (or Johannes Bückler, to use his true name) supposedly amused himself at the inn “Zum Krönchen” during this time.

After Napoleon’s defeat and the delivery of the terms of the Congress of Vienna, Rüdesheim passed in 1814 or 1815 to joint Austrian-Bavarian rule.

Besides passengers, this railway also transported wood from the Soonwald, ore, brownstone and material from the Bockenau quarries.

In the years that followed, 254 Russian prisoners of war were assigned to agricultural work in the Rüdesheim Bürgermeisterei (“mayoralty”) region.

The time that followed generally brought social and economic hardship, currency devaluation, sometimes famine and coal shortages, and bartering flourished.

Other things that locals had to deal with throughout the war were aerial defence measures, collecting drives, receiving ration cards, standing in queues for groceries and other everyday needs, air-raid alerts, searching for potato beetles, collecting scrap, news from the war, funeral services for the fallen and so on.

The “Economic Miracle” that set in after the war also made itself felt in Rüdesheim: In 1963, sewerage was laid throughout the village.

The Constitutional Court (Verfassungsgerichtshof) found in Rüdesheim's favour on 17 December 1969, and the amalgamation was overturned, splitting the village away from the town once again.

The arms have been borne since the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of the Interior approved them on 5 October 1950, and are based on a court seal from 1569.

The main state archive in Koblenz has two stamps made by Rüdesheim court seals, one on a document from 31 December 1569, and the other from 1731.

[11] The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:[12] The following clubs are active in Rüdesheim an der Nahe:[13] Running through Rüdesheim an der Nahe's municipal area is Bundesstraße 41, and running through the village itself are Landesstraße 236 and Kreisstraße 98, which is met by Kreisstraße 52 in the village's west end.

Running on the line to Saarbrücken and by way of Gau Algesheim and the West Rhine Railway to Mainz are Regional-Express and Regionalbahn trains.

Rüdesheim an der Nahe has a daycare centre with five groups[14] and a primary school (Grundschule am Rosengarten).