I built this map from open data. Every point is one of 5,793 castles, fortresses, palaces and ruins across 138 countries: 2,591 castles, 1,180 fortresses, 934 palaces and 1,088 ruins. The density is the story. Europe blazes while most of the planet stays dark.
It is a curated atlas, not a complete inventory. Germany alone has an estimated 25,000 castle sites (According to some sources). A landmark makes the map when it has a real photo on Wikimedia Commons, a Wikipedia article and exact coordinates in Wikidata, balanced across countries so the map stays explorable. France leads with 351.
You can explore every one interactively at https://thecastlemap.com/ with photos, founding centuries and short stories, plus a daily Guess the Castle game. There are no ads or sign up, everything CC0 and free to download.
I have added some of your suggestions to Castlemap. Thank you very much everyone, I really appreciate the time you all have taken to comment here. I hope that you also enjoy the site as well
This shows how incredibly biased wikipedia is. I don’t think there is a single place in Perus mountains that is not in sight of an Inca ruin. I would bet a lot of money they beat germanies 25.000 by at least a factor of 10.
Still cool, but its more of a “map of sights that have a wikipedia article” than a “map of castles and ruins”
I have also thought about Inca ruins because of its history. Thank you for this comment.
Wikipedia should have some of them covered, but I have to get it parsed differently than castles in UK for example. I will try to solve it later see if I can get some of them at least verified and include them on the map.
Yeah I think many of them are also listed as part of a larger archeological site and not individual buildings. The palace of the Inca at Machu Picchu doesn’t have its own page on wikipedia.
For most ruins I fear they are not listed online anywhere at all
Edit: maybe turning it around and going with OSM data first and then linking the sites to wikipedia is more effective? OSM has pretty good searchable databases of archeological sites and individual buildings. The royal palace is listed as a “manor house” in close proximity to the “tourist attraction and archeological site” of Machu Picchu
Thanks! I managed to add something in Peru now https://thecastlemap.com/changelog/
Well the data has to come from somewhere. Is there any place online where these are recorded?
I don’t think there is anything like a comprehensive list of Inca ruins online. If there even exists a list it will probably be with the ministry of culture of Peru and most likely in paper form. Also in Spanish of course.
Wikipedia! All landmarks on the map has even Wiki location and coordinates
OP means ruins of castles/palace, I assume. Not just ruins in general.
Well they list separate numbers for fortress, castle, palace and ruins
This is very cool. As a side note, I also appreciated that it was one of the only sites I’ve visited lately that said it wasn’t interested in cookies, instead of giving me a legal document about how they’re going to track me, whether or not I like it
I just let the Ai design privacy terms so that it actually follows them
Nice! I’ve never seen anything like this before. You can really tell where all the contentious peoples liked to content.
Yeah, now we can’t see it as clearly because all the contentious people are online.
Thanks! Usually I have gotten a lot criticism for the website, but I have been fixing a lot on this website:)
You must get this sort of thing a lot, but why is the palace of Westminster missing, imo it’s second in impressiveness only to Buckingham palace and it’s fairly world famous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Westminster
And the palace of Whitehall is listed as number 7 in England, but I’ve never heard of it, it’s mostly destroyed, and what’s left is not that impressive. If it’s on historical value then fair enough, but still would have thought that Westminster makes the cut.
Thanks for the feedback! Honestly I think that Claude did not take Westminister on the map because it thought that it was only a parliament, not an actual palace. You are right here.
For Whitehall, I will do further verification because the fame listing comes from how famous the place is on Wikipedia. If there are no historical value and the fame comes from it being a city district, then I would have to delete it.
I will see to it later today.
Super cool map.
On a tangent: wars against emus lost by Europeans (0) vs. wars against emus lost by Australians (1+). Draw your own conclusions.
Maybe they should build a fortress to defend themselves against the emus, Why do you think that we have that many castles and fortresses in Europe?
And incidentally, I’ve never seen an emu in all my years living in Europe. If you think that’s a coincidence…
Hmmmmmm shhhhhh
I’m curious about a Castle, Fortress, or Palace in Melbourne & Sydney Australia… As far as I know there are none of them here… Anywhere. A quick search reveals a theme park named Kryal Castle in Ballarat, a restaurant named Fortress in the CBD of Melbourne, & The Palace Theatre; which was demolished in 2020.
If you go to the website, you can zoom in and click it for details.
I am not sure how I can verify that there anything specific more in Sydney or Melbourne. I guess I can take an another round to see if there something more there:)
I think the local people are taking the opportunity to do that for you! :) It’s great!
@Flightmussy @porcelainpitcher There is a fort in Brisbane, Australia, Fort Lytton
Castle rose in buff point,
Used to visit it when I was a kid.
Now.demolished.
Goes to show that you shouldn’t assume you know everything.
Cool! Good comment. Shame you had to post it from your high horse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Macquarie
It was demolished over a century ago and the Sydney Opera House now stands where it used to be. The post description links to an interactive map where you can check each dot
Cool map! I think more could be added to the US if you include historic armories. A lot of those buildings are more castle-like than the fortresses listed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Armories_on_the_National_Register_of_Historic_Places_by_state
A few specific very castley examples in new england: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Armory_(Springfield,_Massachusetts)
Thanks for the suggestion! I will verify them first and then add it to the map:)
