Rais Palace

The Palais des Rais (Arabic: قصر الرياس), also known as Bastion 23, is a classified historical monument located in Algiers, Algeria. It is notable for its architecture and for being the last surviving quarter (houma) of the lower Casbah of Algiers, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Consisting of three palaces and six houses, whose history began with the construction of Bordj-Ez-zoubia in 1576 by the Dey Ramdhan Pasha in order to reinforce the means of defence of this side of the Medina, this quarter ended up being detached, and even isolated from its traditional environment following the restructuring of the lower Casbah during the French period.

It was not until 1909 that Bastion 23 was classified as a Historical Monument under the name Group of Moorish houses. The site was classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992.

Text adapted from “Palais des Rais” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Rais Palace ranks #2,238 of 8,133 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #6 of the 22 mapped in Algeria. Founded 1576, it is older than 36% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 755 atlas entries founded in the 16th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 2,356 times in the last 60 days, more than 70% of the atlas. 7 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. See how Algeria compares in the castle statistics.

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