Greece · 13th century
Mystras or Mistras (Greek: Μυστρᾶς/Μιστρᾶς), also known in the Chronicle of the Morea as Myzethras or Myzithras (Μυζηθρᾶς), is a fortified town and a former municipality in Laconia, Peloponnese, Greece. Situated in the Taygetus range, above ancient Sparta, and below a "Frankish" castle, it served as the capital of the Byzantine Despotate of the Morea in the 14th and 15th centuries, experiencing a period of prosperity and cultural flowering during the Palaeologan Renaissance, attracting artists, architects, and intellectuals such as Gemistos Plethon. The last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos, was despot of Mystras before coming to the throne of Constantinople.
Mystras remained inhabited throughout the Ottoman period, when foreign travellers mistook it for ancient Sparta. In the 1830s, it was abandoned and the new town of Sparta was built, approximately eight kilometres to the east. The 2011 local government reform attached it to the municipality of Sparta.
As an exceptionally well-preserved example of a Byzantine city and because of its testimony to the development of Late Byzantine and Post-byzantine art, Mystras was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1989.
Text adapted from “Mystras” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Mystras ranks #71 of 9,079 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #4 of the 134 mapped in Greece. Founded 1249, it is older than 71% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 1080 atlas entries founded in the 13th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 31,484 times in the last 60 days, more than 99% of the atlas. Wikidata records about 150,000 visitors in 2018. 2 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Kalamata, 23 km away. It is one of the 34 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of the Peloponnese. See how Greece compares in the castle statistics.
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