Castlemap is a free interactive map of 3,691 of the world's greatest castles, fortresses and palaces across 131 countries. Pan and zoom the night map above, click any point for a photo and quick facts, or open a landmark's page for its full story and exact location. From medieval strongholds and hilltop citadels to grand royal palaces, it is the most complete castle map online.
Find castles and fortresses in the countries that have the most:
Browse all 131 countries on the map →
The most-covered castles on Earth, by number of Wikipedia language editions:
The most famous castles in the world, ranked → · Browse all 3,691 castles & fortresses →
Castlemap is built entirely from open data: facts, founding dates and coordinates from Wikidata, photographs from Wikimedia Commons, stories from Wikipedia, and the night basemap from OpenFreeMap and Natural Earth. Rather than plotting every fortification on Earth, the atlas curates the 3,691 most significant castles, fortresses and palaces — each verified to have a real photo, a Wikipedia article and exact coordinates — balanced across 131 countries so the map stays explorable. The atlas reads a dozen Wikipedia language editions beyond English, so a Burg documented only in German or a castello only in Italian can still make the map.
Missing a castle you know? The map refreshes from Wikidata, so the best way to add one is to improve its Wikidata entry: exact coordinates, a Commons photo and a Wikipedia article in any major language make it eligible for the next refresh. Edits to the commons improve every atlas built on them — not just this one.
The full curated dataset is free: download all 3,691 castles as GeoJSON or CSV (CC0). Curious how it breaks down? See the castle statistics — which country has the most castles, who leads per capita, and when the world built them.
Castlemap is a free interactive map of 3,691 of the world's great castles, fortresses and palaces across 131 countries. Every landmark is plotted on the map and has its own page with a photo, founding century, story and coordinates.
3,691 landmarks in total — 1,706 castles, 543 fortresses, 760 palaces and 682 ruins — across 131 countries.
In the Castlemap atlas, Italy has the most with 288, followed by France, Germany, Spain, Poland. You can browse castles in any of 131 countries.
Yes — Castlemap is completely free and needs no account. Open the map and start exploring the world's castles right away.
Castle facts and coordinates come from Wikidata, photos from Wikimedia Commons, and the basemap from OpenFreeMap and Natural Earth — all open data.
Each castle carries a fame score: the number of Wikipedia language editions — plus a few sister projects — that cover it, taken from its Wikidata sitelink count, a well-established proxy for global renown. The Palace of Versailles ranks #1. You can see all 3,691 castles ranked by fame, with the method and its limits explained in full.
Castlemap is curated rather than exhaustive. Europe alone has tens of thousands of castle sites — many towns and hilltops have one — so the atlas maps the 3,691 most significant worldwide: those with a documented story, a real photo and exact coordinates, balanced across countries so the map stays explorable.
Yes — through open data. Castlemap refreshes from Wikidata, so to get a castle added, improve its Wikidata entry with exact coordinates, a Wikimedia Commons photo and a Wikipedia article — English or any of the dozen major language editions the atlas reads. Well-documented castles become eligible for the next data refresh, and your edit improves every map built on open data.
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