France · 15th century
The Château de Chenonceau (French: [ʃɑto də ʃənɔ̃so]) is a French château spanning the river Cher, near the small village of Chenonceaux, Indre-et-Loire, Centre-Val de Loire. It is one of the best-known châteaux of the Loire Valley.
The estate of Chenonceau is first mentioned in writing in the 11th century. The current château was built in 1514–1522 on the foundations of an old mill and was later extended to span the river. The bridge over the river was built (1556–1559) to designs by the French Renaissance architect Philibert de l'Orme, and the gallery on the bridge, built from 1570 to 1576 to designs by Jean Bullant.
Text adapted from “Château de Chenonceau” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Château de Chenonceau ranks #60 of 9,079 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #7 of the 793 mapped in France. Founded 1411, it is older than 50% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 554 atlas entries founded in the 15th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 56,333 times in the last 60 days, more than 99% of the atlas. 11 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Tours, 30 km away. It is one of the 73 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of the Loire Valley. It is stop 21 of 32 on the Loire Valley château route, Angers to Orléans. See how France compares in the castle statistics.
View on the interactive castle map →