Saaleck is a village in the former municipality of Bad Kösen, since 2010 part of the town of Naumburg in the district of Burgenlandkreis in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt.

By directly facing each other, the castles of Saaleck and Rudelsburg are symbols of the rivalry among the regional competing powers in the High Middle Ages.

Both castles served as strategic outposts above the nearby fords to collect taxes and rights along the Via Regia and the main trade routes that added to the wealth of the region in the 12th century.

[5] The ruins of Saaleck Castle rest on a low tongue of a range of hills about 65 metres above the Saale River, which is flowing around three of its sides.

[7] The silhouette of the castles Saaleck and Rudelsburg in very short distance to another has become one of the most prominent emblems of the reception of the Middle Ages since the period of Romanticism.