Szigliget Castle

Szigliget Castle is a castle ruin on a hill above the Hungarian town of the same name on the shore of Lake Balaton. The castle was built by the Benedictine abbey of Pannonhalma in 1262 and later became royal property. After 1300 it was held by the Móriczhidai family, after 1445 Miklós Újlaki became lord of the castle, and from 1521 it belonged to the Tóti-Lengyel family. The castle protected the Hungarian borders with the Ottoman Empire and experienced many Turkish raids, but not one of them was successful. In 1702 it was destroyed on the order of Emperor Leopold, and the local inhabitants gradually carried off its stones; it was repaired in 1931, 1953 and 1965–1966. The upper castle with two towers and a palace measures 75 × 20 metres. During the 15th and 16th centuries the northern lower castle, measuring 75 × 50 metres, was built below it.

It is a double castle; the lower castle with a roundel served as the main fortress.

Machine-translated from “Szigliget (hrad)” on the Czech Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Szigliget Castle ranks #4,779 of 8,133 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #29 of the 135 mapped in Hungary. Founded 1262, it is older than 69% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 860 atlas entries founded in the 13th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 2,161 times in the last 60 days, more than 69% of the atlas. 5 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Székesfehérvár, 85 km away. See how Hungary compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia (in Czech) ↗