Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt was a small historic state in present-day Thuringia, Germany, with its capital at Rudolstadt.

Since the 11th century, the ancestral seat of the comital family had been at Schwarzburg Castle, though after 1340, for most of its existence as a polity had the capital at the larger town of Rudolstadt.

He was succeeded by his younger brothers, whereby Albert VII received the territory around Rudolstadt.

After their brother William I, Count of Schwarzburg-Frankenhausen had died in 1597, the surviving brothers Albert VII and John Günther I established the two counties of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt and Schwarzburg-Sondershausen by the 1599 Treaty of Stadtilm.

Albert's descendants ruled as sovereign counts of the Holy Roman Empire.