Mexico · 16th century
San Juan de Ulúa, now known as Castle of San Juan de Ulúa, is a large complex of fortresses, prisons and one former palace on an island of the same name in the Gulf of Mexico overlooking the seaport of Veracruz, Mexico. Juan de Grijalva's 1518 expedition named the island. On March 30, 1519, Hernan Cortés met with Tendile and Pitalpitoque, emissaries from Moctezuma II's Aztec Empire.
It was built between 1535 and 1769. There is a local museum of the fortress, inaugurated in 1984.
Text adapted from “San Juan de Ulúa” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Castle of San Juan de Ulúa ranks #911 of 9,079 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #3 of the 10 mapped in Mexico. Founded 1565, it is older than 36% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 891 atlas entries founded in the 16th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 8,879 times in the last 60 days, more than 93% of the atlas. See how Mexico compares in the castle statistics.
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