Syria · 8th century
Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi (Arabic: قصر الحير الشرقي, lit. 'Eastern al-Hayr Palace or the "Eastern Castle"') is a castle (qasr) in the middle of the Syrian Desert. It was built by the Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik in 728-29 CE in an area rich in desert fauna. It was apparently used as a military and hunting outpost. The palace is the counterpart of Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi, a nearby castle palace built one year earlier. It is one of the so-called desert castles.
Text adapted from “Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi ranks #1,934 of 9,079 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #12 of the 38 mapped in Syria. Founded 729, it is older than 95% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 48 atlas entries founded in the 8th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 1,387 times in the last 60 days, more than 60% of the atlas. It is one of the 106 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of the Levant. See how Syria compares in the castle statistics.
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