France · 12th century
The Château de Pau (English: Pau Castle, Basque: Paueko gaztelua) is a castle in the centre of the city of Pau, the capital of Pyrénées-Atlantiques and Béarn. It dominates that quarter of the city.
Henry IV of France and Navarre was born here on December 13, 1553, and it was once used by Napoleon as a holiday home during his period of power.
The château has been classified as a Monument historique since 1840 by the French Ministry of Culture.
Nowadays, as the Musée national du Château de Pau, it contains a collection of tapestries.
Text adapted from “Château de Pau” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Château de Pau ranks #740 of 9,079 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #67 of the 793 mapped in France. Founded c. 1150, it is older than 80% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 756 atlas entries founded in the 12th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 6,760 times in the last 60 days, more than 90% of the atlas. See how France compares in the castle statistics.
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