The World's 2,400 Castles

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The World's 2,400 Castles

marklit

Comments (126)

mxfh
If you submit some map, at least don't have the title contradict the content description:"the 2,435 most significant landmarks worldwide, ordered by a fame ranking that blends Wikipedia coverage with real readership."or someone fix the title here please to what on the app right now:"Map of the world's great castles & fortresses" whatever that means.Germany's Saxony alone has 700+ fortications with about 100 being touristically interesting. In the map I count like 9.
clickety_clack
This is off by many degrees of magnitude for Ireland at least: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1nkvqd7/oc...
Bedon292
Cool idea, horrible dataset. Its limited to things in Wikidata rather than using OSM, and it must have an article on Wikipedia in English to count so I am sure it is missing just based on that. And somehow it misses many castles (and other categories it includes) which do meet those requirements.There is no definition of what they use to categorize anything either. And it clearly isn't applied consistently. There is a Château category and yet many things with Château in their name are tagged as castles.
Flightmussy
Hi thanks for the feedback and thank you Marklit to submit it here!Thecastlemap.com is one of the websites I operate. I also operate trainrouter.com, sunshineatlas.com. and europebeachmap.com.Honestly, I did not want to focus too much on this website due to what I thought of a market of low demand. However, there are so many critical comments. Hence, I will fix it properly and this will be one of the websites I will fully commit to.I appreciate everything guys even if you probably do not like the website. The reason why I made the website is because I reallly like castles....
mrjay42
Nice project :3There's a MASSIVE amount of castles missingJust for France, the castle visible on the map -> this is not even 5%Depending on the count it goes from 20000 castles to 45000 (just for France!)
Yhippa
Clearly vibe-coded. Cool idea though. I can see what was leveraged from the Wikipedia data set.Side question: why does Claude prefer dark backgrounds with low-contrast text?
tagami
My first dotcom began by listing German castles for sale after the wall fell. https://web.archive.org/web/19970102101502/http://www.re.com...
jcfariadias
Palácio da Bolsa in Porto is not, at all, a castle. It was built in the XIX century as the stock market and never served defensive purposes as castles would. Not to speak about the sheer amount of misses in Portugal. This is off by a lot!
runxel
Very cool project, but obviously missing (too) many great castles. I'm not sure if that way of measuring popularity is really well done.
SubiculumCode
https://thecastlemap.com/Peer’s Certificate issuer is not recognized.HTTP Strict Transport Security: false HTTP Public Key Pinning: falseCertificate chain:-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- MIIDbjCCAlagAwIBAgIIGMReeVlgUbwwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQELBQAwaDELMAkGA1UE BhMCVVMxEzARBgNVBAgMCkNhbGlmb3JuaWExFDASBgNVBAcMC1NhbnRhIENsYXJh MRcwFQYDVQQKDA5JbmZvYmxveCwgSW5jLjEVMBMGA1UEAwwMaW5mb2Jsb3guY29t MB4XDTI2MDEwNTIwMTAyMloXDTI3MDMzMTIwMTAyMlowGzEZMBcGA1UEAxMQdGhl Y2FzdGxlbWFwLmNvbTCCASIwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEBBQADggEPADCCAQoCggEBAKx1 FdJskXQ/SUOQA+ClFQFTTP7uhSGQ0HUIPHjexi/uEQxlt6cw3+1GkWkbhvBchyip 83Vz/ysqObYV0RL85pAJJRKy3zazXb2UadY3kuCnNReCscH3TUJ+KRY1siuTVHgl fnMP5axUvrR+k/Lx5Pojr2T46gjpd+93gT9I4W3Sd98MRrOo6xCopicJ1cLadYGg 7BVz1zj1nyyPIXKfHSiEBxahFK7wLG+Uz3TqrNIBHcI7Te3BuIzkM7g4XE+DmnSg jFo4Emf4U10VwI2i+YFi4JpoOr4SFF/ruy7tntsFRIdHXaE5YoDvJu5My9VmGicG WwZSJ9dw9nqBQf6UE48CAwEAAaNpMGcwEwYDVR0lBAwwCgYIKwYBBQUHAwEwHwYD VR0jBBgwFoAUcWvREelOR6JJ2t8FGZq4V7LnXFowLwYDVR0RBCgwJoIQdGhlY2Fz dGxlbWFwLmNvbYISKi50aGVjYXN0bGVtYXAuY29tMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBCwUAA4IB AQB3Of7y+3aeTWwcta9nbMERIZWw28QGr1bwMDrAY97y7FmToUkGCWw3M5SovEi1 M3p92t1puVyM3A+qxQ2dxIx4jgQJZbnhz7k3gqSUJ7cjVwiL3QJXKoge1zBYL9tA DQ8YeBLoseGjI0hgXeB2QrbrIdMpJ4Hp8uHuDNiyzGDmvg8RuMDCpzfUPfvYQFBD c0Vp+9mf2jRTIBhXslJewM3D26ZiEYbcisR2v3+R+jc0AFkqi2wp7tAU+nG+w4A6 Dy6tLN+EgQ1MBGBrFZFoPO7wRCk1nNItxTGlNlLBvTN9by5i7XE5PNQPOxL/JN3i hRZpkDAQCiMnfFgIGw0exlxY -----END CERTIFICATE-----
yabones
Not sure if they count, but the site appears to be missing loads of British star-forts built around the great lakes, st. lawrence, and eastern Canada!https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citadel_Hill_(Fort_George)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Island_(Nova_Scotia)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citadelle_of_Quebec https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Fort_Erie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_AnneThey built these things _everywhere_, probably a good part of what bankrupted the British Empire!https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Charlotte_(Nassau)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Wales_Fort
prmph
Nice project, but what is "hidden" gem about Elmina castle in Ghana?If Cape Coast Castle is described as "world renowned", then Elmina should be as well. I live in Ghana their popularity is almost evenly matched.Also Elmina castle is the oldest and largest European building in existence in sub-Saharan Africa.One more thing, it is kind of hard to click on specific dots when they are so clustered together. I had to zoom in a lot to see and be able to click on some of the castles I knew were there.
suzzer99
I had to look up Madagascar's castle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rova_of_AntananarivoThe Rova of Antananarivo /ˈruːvə/ (Malagasy: Rovan'i Manjakamiadana [ˈruvᵊn manˌdzakəmiˈadə̥nᵊ]) is a royal palace complex (rova) in Madagascar that was the home of the sovereigns of the Kingdom of Imerina in the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as of the rulers of the Kingdom of Madagascar in the 19th century. Located in the central highland city of Antananarivo, the Rova occupies the highest point on Analamanga, formerly the highest of Antananarivo's many hills.
fillskills
Excellent usecase of map and history. Request to add a year range selector or slider
Aardwolf
That's less than I expected for worldwideApparently Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, etc... were not really into castles, while Japan was?
1970-01-01
Why nothing in North America but forts? There are lots of ancient structures that should be considered. Ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montezuma_Castle_National_Monu...
comrade1234
Seems like it's missing a lot for Switzerland.
r721
Comment from dev in previous submission:>This project is in early stages and the information is brought by wikipedia. The goal of this project is to make castle viewing a bit more fun.https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48861309
deton3991
What's really neat about this isn't just the visualization, but that they’ve packaged the whole dataset as open GeoJSON/CSV mirrored on Hugging Face and GitHub—plus an MCP endpoint for AI agents.
pimlottc
Is this anything more substantial than a weekend-coded public data scrape?
Brendinooo
The local "castle" on the map is Fort Duquesne, which is listed as "ruins" but in fact has no ruins to visit. It says "The site of both forts is now occupied by Point State Park, where the outlines of the two forts have been laid in granite slabs" - which is true, but...there are no ruins here!If forts count as castles, at least do Fort Pitt, which has the blockhouse functional.Anyways - this is a fun project and it should continue!
allturtles
This dataset is bad. The North Carolina state capitol is a castle?
relevant_stats
This is not a "map of castles".I checked my local area, and it omits interesting castles, instead including palaces, landmarks and world war era fortresses.Shameful submission.
kinow
I went to a castle in Dunedin, New Zealand, but NZ seems to be castle-less: Larnach Castle, https://www.larnachcastle.co.nz/.Brazil also has a few castles, although not sure if they are classified differently -- https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_de_castelos_no_Brasil
jollyllama
Needs some of the ones referenced here (including the Dupont Castle, the work of the site's author, who lasted provided a work update in '22): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27929729See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44948352
pphysch
Meta commentary: this is clearly a vibe-coded frontend to a low quality "dataset" with substantial omissions.The real value and work would be someone actually compiling and creating a high-quality castle dataset, in which case anyone could vibe-code a similar frontend to it.Potentially a agent (swarm) could do this, if properly integrated into OSM, wikis, libraries, photographs etc. But it wouldn't be quick and would still benefit from a human-in-the-loop verifying each entry.
hggh
Wrong title. Wrong not even by two orders of magnitude.
busymom0
None in Ausralia?
modeless
Is Fort Ross really "Renowned" as listed? I've never heard of it and honestly it doesn't look very interesting. I'd rather visit Fort Knox which is a real fortification currently in use, world famous, and not listed here.
samfar90
Clicking on full story doesn't do anything. It closes the popup (mobile android)
notorandit
Italy, like Germany, Austria and maybe a few more European countries host more than 5,000 "castles".
CrzyLngPwd
Since forts are included in the USA, there are loads of Napoleonic forts missing in the UK.Plymouth is surrounded by them.
sebnukem2
The ones in the area where I used to live are all missing.
pizzathyme
We just stayed in Dalhousie Castle, the oldest in Scotland. Very beautiful and well maintained, with lots of spooky history.If you want to leave a legacy, build something out of stone.
geff82
Interesting, still I miss most castles around me.
makeusgreat
Hearst Castle Missing. Please add it, it’s probably the most famous castle in California.
BasieP2
Really luke it, but on mobile (firefox) the links (to wikipedia etc) just don't work..
lifeisstillgood
The 10 most famous castles in the worldPalace of Versailles FranceForbidden City People's Republic of ChinaNeuschwanstein Castle GermanyBuckingham Palace EnglandAlhambra SpainTower of London EnglandWindsor Castle EnglandKremlin RussiaRed Fort IndiaTopkapı Palace TurkeySo I could name recognise the top ten, and yeah I won’t argue too hard with the list, just apart from Neuschwanstein - but the second I saw it I realised I did not know the name but “Bavarian fairy castle” clearly deserves its ranking
meerita
Would be amazing to see which one of these are on sale.
pastemato
Immediately curious about the concentration of castles on the Ghanaian coast. Wonder what that's about.
hurghada
Hungary has more than a lot missing https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magyarorsz%C3%A1gi_v%C3%A1rak_...
guyzero
Interesting that in Canada Rideau Hall counts, but Casa Loma does not.
BasieP2
Love it..But the links don't work.(firefox mobile)
onion2k
Invading Australia is looking pretty tempting right now.
ipunchghosts
This is missing castles. There are several in and near lerici Italy not listed
andsoitis
Australia doesn’t have a single castle!
dolmen
Château de Saint-Cloud, near Paris, reported as "renowned ruin" ??? What a joke! Only the gardens remain.Even more ridiculous : Bastille also reported as "renowned ruin". Nothing remains. All stones have disappeared centuries ago.
holoduke
There are many castles near my parents house in france. I don't see any of them? AI generated?
insane_dreamer
Great project! Kudos to the designer.Might need additional datasets though -- this one is lacking. only ~10 fortresses in France? LOLThe fortress / castle distinction is quite difficult and perhaps not useful? This map classifies the Crac (Krak) des Chevaliers[0], in modern-day Syria, as a "castle" but I would argue it's really a "fortress" (and in fact, one of the best preserved ancient fortresses in the world).[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krak_des_Chevaliers
anon
undefined
philipwhiuk
Missing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanbrugh_Castle
hbcdbff
Slop
sam_lowry_
Where is the castle of James Damore?
drstewart
Tangential, but many of these aren't what people traditionally would think of as castles. Is there any consensus on what the "castliest of castles" is? Presumably something in the UK or Ireland or thereabouts considering that's where the popular media conception of them comes from.
dyauspitr
Is a palace a castle? If so then there are a huge number missing in India.
weezing
Heavily lacking at least in Poland. Reeks clanker powered. I miss the times where actual hobbyists were doing stuff.
shevy-java
I mean, the reason why these dominate in Europe is because largely of the medieval era and a bit before that. Once gunpowder became more widely used, castles became increasingly obsolete. Nowadays they have only touristic value really or movie values, such as the castle in the movie Monty Python and the holy grail. Other than that they are just stone ruins really, some more polished than others. They have no real worth nowadays other than wonder how many resources went into building them.Also, as others pointed out, the map is missing many castles. I also doubt the spread over China, the map only says about 7 castles in whole China? So that seems totally wrong. The definition for a castle must be incorrect, because Japan has attributed many more and that is simply objectively incorrect. Is the chinese palace classified as a castle? If not, why not? If yes then why not other palaces in China? The map is really not very good here. It should begin by a good definition of what is meant with a castle.