Rudolstadt is a town in the German federal state Thuringia, within the Thuringian Forest, to the southwest, and to Jena and Weimar to the north.

The former capital of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, the town is built along the River Saale inside a wide valley surrounded by woods.

There is archeological evidence of a hill fort on the Weinberg in Oberpreilipp from the time of the late Urnfield culture and the early Iron Age.

The first documented mention of the place-name was in 776 as Rudolfestat (Rudolf's settlement) as a gift from Charlemagne to Hersfeld Abbey[4] In 1994 the Neonazi and police-informant Tino Brandt (NPD) founded the Neonazi-Gang „Thüringer Heimatschutz“ (THS, Thuringian homeland protection) in Rudolstadt.

The THS gave rise to the Nazi terrorist group National Socialist Underground (NSU), which murdered a total of ten people over a period of 10 years.