Nitra Castle

Nitra Castle (Slovak: Nitriansky hrad, Hungarian: Nyitrai vár) is a castle located in the Old Town of Nitra, Slovakia. It dominates the city and is a national cultural monument. It is the seat of the Diocese of Nitra.

The first fortified center on Castle Hill dates back to the Bronze Age (1,600 BCE). In the 1st century BCE, the hill was settled by Celts. After its destruction, the site was abandoned until the early Slavic period (7th-8th centuries) and at least from the turn of the 8th/9th centuries, it was permanently occupied by Slavs. In the first half of the 9th century, the top of the hill was protected by the wooden palisade. In the second half of the same century, the Slavs built a massive rampart made of two outer drystone walls (thickness 2 x 3m) with an internal timber structure filled with earth (3m). The original rampart was destroyed before early 11th century.

The castle was built in the 11th century on the place of an earlier fort. The core of the castle is St. Emmeram's Cathedral with the Bishop's residence; the oldest surviving part is the Romanesque Church of St. Emmeram from the 11th century along with two other parts of the cathedral: the originally Gothic Upper Church from the 14th century and the Lower Church from the 17th century. The originally Gothic Bishop's Palace got its present Late Baroque appearance in the 18th century. There are also surviving parts of the castle fortifications, the majority of which were created in the 16th and 17th centuries and a smaller part from the Middle Ages. The church is currently being remodeled.

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

Nitra Castle ranks #1,592 of 7,738 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #16 of the 136 mapped in Slovakia. Founded 1050, it is older than 90% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 317 atlas entries founded in the 11th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 2,365 times in the last 60 days, more than 70% of the atlas. 6 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Nitra, 1 km away. See how Slovakia compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia ↗