Neuschwanstein Castle

Neuschwanstein Castle (German: Schloss Neuschwanstein, pronounced [ˈʃlɔs nɔʏˈʃvaːnʃtaɪn]; Southern Bavarian: Schloss Neischwanstoa; lit. 'Newswanstone') is a 19th-century historicist palace on a rugged hill of the foothills of the Alps in the very south of Germany, near the border with Austria. It is located in the Swabia region of Bavaria, in the municipality of Schwangau, above the incorporated village of Hohenschwangau, which is also the location of Hohenschwangau Castle. The closest larger town is Füssen. The castle stands above the narrow gorge of the Pöllat stream, east of the Alpsee and Schwansee lakes, close to the mouth of the Lech into Lake Forggensee. Since 2025, the castle has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "The Palaces of King Ludwig II of Bavaria: Neuschwanstein, Linderhof, Schachen and Herrenchiemsee". According to Guinness World Records, at 65 metres (213 feet), it is the tallest castle in the world. Despite the main residence of the Bavarian monarchs at the time—the Munich Residenz—being one of the most extensive palace complexes in the world, King Ludwig II of Bavaria felt the need to escape from the constraints he saw himself exposed to in Munich, and commissioned Neuschwanstein Castle on the remote northern edges of the Alps as a retreat but also in honour of composer Richard Wagner, whom he greatly admired. The three-winged complex was built between 1869 and 1892 based on plans by Eduard Riedel in the Neo-Romanesque style. Medieval knights' castles served as their architectural model. The throne room, the bedroom, and the minstrels' hall are particularly noteworthy. Ludwig II chose to pay for the palace out of his personal fortune and by means of extensive borrowing rather than Bavarian public funds.

Text adapted from “Neuschwanstein Castle” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Neuschwanstein Castle ranks #5 of 7,051 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #1 of the 476 mapped in Germany. Founded 1869, it is older than 7% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 452 atlas entries founded in the 19th century. See how Germany compares in the castle statistics.

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