Citadel of Damascus

The Citadel of Damascus (Arabic: قلعة دمشق, romanized: Qalʿat Dimašq) is an Ayyubid-era medieval fortified palace and citadel in Damascus, Syria. It is part of the Ancient City of Damascus, which was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

The location of the current citadel was first fortified in 1076 by the Turkman warlord Atsiz bin Uvak, although it is possible but not proven that a citadel stood on this place in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. After the assassination of Atsiz bin Uvak, the project was finished by the Seljuq ruler Tutush I. The emirs of the subsequent Burid and Zengid dynasties carried out modifications and added new structures to it. During this period, the citadel and the city were besieged several times by Crusader and Muslim armies. In 1174, the citadel was captured by Saladin, the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt, who made it his residence and had the defences and residential buildings modified.

Saladin's brother Al-Adil rebuilt the citadel completely between 1203 and 1216 in response to the development of the counterweight trebuchet. After his death, power struggles broke out between the other Ayyubid princes and although Damascus switched hands several times, the citadel was taken by force only once, in 1239. The citadel remained in Ayyubid hands until the Mongols under their general Kitbuqa captured Damascus in 1260, thereby ending Ayyubid rule in Syria. After an unsuccessful revolt broke out in the citadel, the Mongols had most of it dismantled. After the defeat of the Mongols in 1260 by the Mamluks, who had succeeded the Ayyubids as rulers of Egypt, Damascus came under Mamluk rule. Except for brief periods in 1300 and 1401, when the Mongols conquered Damascus, the Mamluks controlled the citadel until 1516. In that year, Syria fell into the hands of the Ottoman Empire.

Text adapted from “Citadel of Damascus” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Citadel of Damascus ranks #992 of 7,738 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #8 of the 37 mapped in Syria. Founded 1076, it is older than 88% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 317 atlas entries founded in the 11th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 4,229 times in the last 60 days, more than 82% of the atlas. 2 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Damascus, 1 km away. It is one of the 109 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of the Levant. See how Syria compares in the castle statistics.

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