Sweden · 13th century
City wall of Visby ranks #673 of 9,040 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #12 of the 209 mapped in Sweden. Founded c. 1300, it is older than 60% of the atlas's dated landmarks, one of 1091 atlas entries founded in the 13th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 6,787 times in the last 60 days, more than 90% of the atlas. 2 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. See how Sweden compares in the castle statistics.
Visby City Wall (Swedish: Visby ringmur, "Visby Ring Wall", sometimes Visby stadsmur, "Visby City Wall") is a medieval defensive wall surrounding the Swedish town of Visby on the island of Gotland. As the strongest, most extensive, and best preserved medieval city wall in Scandinavia, the wall forms an important and integral part of Visby World Heritage Site.
Built in two stages during the 13th and 14th century, approximately 3.44 km (2.14 mi) of its original 3.6 km (2.2 mi) still stands. Of the 29 large and 22 smaller towers, 27 large and 9 small remain. A number of houses that predate the wall were incorporated within it during one of the two phases of construction. During the 18th century, fortifications were added to the wall in several places and some of the towers rebuilt to accommodate cannons.
Text adapted from “Visby City Wall” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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