Oulu Castle

Oulu Castle (Swedish: Uleåborgs slott, Finnish: Oulun linna) was a late defense castle in Oulu, Finland. It was built on an island in the delta of Oulu River in 1590. The castle was mostly made of wood and earth walls. There probably was an earlier medieval castle on the same site latest by 1375. The Russian Sofia First Chronicle records that in 1377, men from Novgorod tried to conquer a newly built castle in the Oulu River delta but were unsuccessful.

The present-day ruins on Linnansaari Island belong to a later castle, built in 1605 by order of King Charles IX. In a decree issued on 8 April 1605, the king first instructed the construction of Kajaani Castle and then ordered the rebuilding of Oulu Castle. The decree stated that the old wooden structures were to be demolished and replaced with a fortified rampart featuring fire shelters around the island.

The castle was severely damaged in 1715 when Russian forces set it on fire during the Great Northern War. Its final destruction took place on 31 July 1793, at 10:45 p.m., when lightning set one of the powder magazines on fire; as a result, the powder cellar exploded and almost completely destroyed the building.

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

Oulu Castle ranks #4,591 of 5,479 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #18 of the 18 mapped in Finland. Founded 1590, it is older than 38% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 437 atlas entries founded in the 16th century. See how Finland compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia ↗