Stadion was a small state of the Holy Roman Empire, located around Thannhausen in the present-day Bavarian administrative region of Swabia, Germany.

However, the first certain documented ancestor of the family can be traced back to the knight "Waltherus de Stadegun" who was mentioned first on 13 May in 1270.

Johann Philipp of Stadion (1652–1742), high steward of the archbishops of Mainz, was elevated to the rank of a Freiherr (Baron) in 1686.

After that, as all other German mediatized houses, they kept some of its privileges, among most important ones being their equal status to all reigning families for marriage purposes.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Stadions became extinct upon the death of the last male representative, Count Philipp Franz Joseph von Stadion-Thannhausen (1847-1908).