SMS Leipzig was a German flush-deck steam corvette, the lead ship of the Leipzig class, named after the 1813 Battle of Leipzig. She was built for the Kaiserliche Marine in the 1870s, being laid down in early 1875, launched in September that year, and commissioned into the fleet in May 1877. She had one sister ship, SMS Prinz Adalbert. Intended for long cruises abroad, the ship was fitted with a full ship rig to supplement her steam engine if coal was unavailable. She carried a battery of twelve 17 cm (6.7 in) guns.

The Leipzig class was a group of two screw corvettes built for the German Kaiserliche Marine in the 1870s. The two ships of the class were Leipzig and Prinz Adalbert; Prinz Adalbert was originally named Sedan after the Battle of Sedan, but was renamed shortly after entering service to avoid angering France. They were based on the earlier corvette Freya, but were significantly larger, carried a stronger armament, and unlike the wooden-hulled Ariadne-class corvettes, adopted iron construction, making them the first corvettes of the German fleet to be built with iron. Originally intended to serve abroad and with the fleet, British experiences during the Battle of Pacocha in 1877 convinced the German naval command that unarmored warships were useless against the fleets of ironclads being built by the European navies, and so Leipzig and Prinz Adalbert would be used only on foreign stations.