Rumelifeneri Castle

Rumelifeneri Castle, or Topçu Castle, is a castle dating from the 17th century on the slopes of Rumelifeneri in Istanbul. It took its name from the Rumeli Lighthouse, which also gave its name to the village right beside it. The castle is reached by road by passing through the village of Rumelifeneri in the district of Sarıyer. The history of the lighthouse that gives the village its name goes back very far; it is known that from earliest times fires were lit at the entrance of the Bosphorus in order to guide sailors.

The name of the village where the Rumeli Lighthouse stands is known to have been Fanariyan Point in the Byzantine period. This name has meanings such as small lighthouse and European lighthouse, and in antiquity it was also called Panyum Point.

The castle, which lies at the outermost point of the Bosphorus on the Black Sea side, has an arched entrance gate. In the Republican period it was used as a military post. Today the castle lies within a First Degree Natural Conservation Area declared by the decision of the Regional Board for the Protection of Cultural and Natural Property dated 12 March 2008 and numbered 2938. The oldest record relating to Rumelifeneri Castle is a document dated 1769/1183 AH in the Ottoman State Archives of the Prime Ministry of the Republic of Turkey.

The historical information about the castle is not certain. It is claimed that it was first built in the 15th century by the Genoese, or perhaps even earlier by the Byzantines. However, most sources state that it was built around 1769 for the Ottoman Empire by a Greek engineer whose name is not known. It was later redesigned by the French engineers Toussaint in 1783, Latife-Clavé in 1785 and Monnier in 1794.

Machine-translated from “Rumeli Feneri Kalesi” on the Turkish Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Rumelifeneri Castle ranks #6,941 of 8,134 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #100 of the 129 mapped in Turkey. Founded c. 1650, it is older than 26% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 626 atlas entries founded in the 17th century. 13 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Istanbul, 28 km away. See how Turkey compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia (in Turkish) ↗