Egypt · 16th century
Arish castle ranks #8,413 of 9,040 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #33 of the 36 mapped in Egypt. Founded 1560, it is older than 35% of the atlas's dated landmarks, one of 887 atlas entries founded in the 16th century. The nearest day-trip guide is Ashkelon, 94 km away. See how Egypt compares in the castle statistics.
Arish castle is a historic castle founded by Sultan Suleiman Khan I, known as Suleiman the Magnificent, in the year 968 AH, corresponding to 1560 AD; he brought to it a garrison of Bosniaks (from present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina), and to this garrison the lineages of most of the families of the city of Arish go back. For several centuries Arish castle remained a principal centre for the administration of Sinai, which was a single governorate before becoming two governorates after the return of Arish to Egyptian soil after 1979. As for the castle's garrison, there is an unfounded account that it was Muhammad Ali who disbanded it.
Machine-translated from “قلعة العريش” on the Arabic Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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