The kings of Alba Longa, or Alban kings (Latin: reges Albani), were a series of legendary kings of Latium, who ruled from the ancient city of Alba Longa. In the mythic tradition of ancient Rome, they fill the 400-year gap between the settlement of Aeneas in Italy and the founding of the city of Rome by Romulus. It was this line of descent to which the Julii claimed kinship. The traditional line of the Alban kings ends with Numitor, the grandfather of Romulus and Remus. One later king, Gaius Cluilius, is mentioned by Roman historians, although his relation to the original line, if any, is unknown; and after his death, a few generations after the time of Romulus, the city was destroyed by Tullus Hostilius, the third King of Rome, and its population transferred to Alba's daughter city.

But, now I know, the lineage of Aeneas will rule over all, and so too will his son, and his son's sons, who will be born thereafter.

— Poseidon, Strabo 13.1.53 (Iliad XX 307-308)

The city of Alba Longa, often abbreviated Alba, was a Latin settlement in the montes Albani, or Alban Hills, near the present site of Castel Gandolfo in Latium. Although the exact location remains difficult to prove, there is archaeological evidence of Iron Age settlements in the area traditionally identified as the site. In Roman mythology, Alba was founded by Ascanius, the son of Aeneas, as a colony of Lavinium, the original settlement of Trojan refugees and native Latins, which it quickly eclipsed. There is some uncertainty in the tradition as to Ascanius' mother; in some accounts he was the son of Lavinia, and grandson of Latinus, the native king who welcomed Aeneas and the Trojans; his elder half brother, Iulus, was the son of Creusa, Aeneas' first wife, who died in the sack of Troy. This was the account favoured by Livy; in other versions, Ascanius was the son of Creusa; Dionysius and Virgil follow this account. However, the two differ where Vergil claims Ascanius and Iulus were the same; Dionysius, on the other hand, makes Iulus the son of Ascanius. In all accounts, Ascanius was the founder and first king of Alba Longa, while Iulus was claimed as the ancestor of the Julian gens.

Eratosthenes, the most influential of the ancient chronologists, reckoned that the sack of Troy occurred in 1184 BC, more than four centuries before the traditional founding of Rome, in 753. The history of the Alban kings conveniently filled that gap with a continuous line leading from Aeneas to Romulus, thus serving as a mythical justification for the close ties between Rome and the rest of Latium, and enhancing the status of Roman and Latin families who claimed descent from the original Trojan settlers or their Alban descendants. Such was the eagerness in the late Republic to claim a Trojan pedigree that fifteen different lists of the Alban kings from Aeneas to Romulus survive.

When Aeneas and the Trojan refugees landed on the shores of the Laurentian plain, they encountered the Latins, led by their eponymous king, Latinus. The Latins were aborigines; that is, the original inhabitants of Latium, a title sometimes used to refer to the Latins before the arrival of Aeneas. Latinus was the son of Faunus, and grandson of Picus, the first king of Latium, who was in turn the son of Saturn. This was the most usual account, followed by Virgil in the Aeneid, and by Eusebius, but there were also several other versions. Picus was also said to be the son of Mars, rather than Saturn. According to Justin, Faunus was Latinus' maternal grandfather, and was the son of Jupiter, rather than Picus; in this account Saturn was the first king of the Latins. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Latinus was the son of Hercules, and merely pretended to be the son of Faunus; Aeneas arrived in the thirty-fifth year of his reign over the Aborigines.

Evander and Janus are also sometimes described as ancient kings of the Aborigines; but Livy describes Evander as a king of the Arcadians, as does Virgil, who makes him an ally of Aeneas in the war against the Rutuli. In his Saturnalia, Macrobius describes Janus as sharing Latium with another king, known as Camese.

The Latins were alarmed by the arrival of the Trojans, and rushed to arms; according to some accounts, a battle was fought, in which Latinus was defeated, and a peace concluded between the two groups, cemented by the marriage of Aeneas and Lavinia, daughter of the Latin king; in other versions battle was narrowly averted when the two leaders chose to parley before hostilities could begin, and Aeneas impressed his host with his noble bearing and woeful story, leading to an alliance. Aeneas then established the town of Lavinium, named after his young bride, with a mixed population of Trojans and Latins.