Map of the world's great castles and fortresses • Hacker News Board

Re: Map of the world's great castles and fortresses

#61

Post by prmph » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:32 PM UTC

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.

Re: Map of the world's great castles and fortresses

#62

Post by bluGill » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:33 PM UTC

dbspin wrote: post #37

clickety_clack wrote: post #24

This is off by many degrees of magnitude for Ireland at least: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1nkvqd7/oc...

Seems like your map lists pre-historic ring forts, not castles? I'm not sure what the 'official' definition of a castle is, but I personally wouldn't consider a crannóg or something like Dún Aonghasa a castle. Nor would I consider a stand alone tower house a castle, although they might (along with gate lodges and great houses), sometimes be colloquially referred to as castles. Surely a castle is a fortified building,…

I like the definition where castle is a fortress where a Nobel lives. Fort is where an army lives but no Nobel leader. Palace is where a Nobel lives but it isn't expected to withstand a siege

Re: Map of the world's great castles and fortresses

#63

Post by AStrangeMorrow » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:34 PM UTC

clickety_clack wrote: post #24

This is off by many degrees of magnitude for Ireland at least: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1nkvqd7/oc...

Same for France and Spain, which is what I am familiar with. I am expecting it to be true all around.

The map of France shows maybe 100 castles? If you include castles, forts and chateaux (which it seems the map aims to do) France has around 45000 of them, including 15k medieval castles (military), an other 15k from the Renaissance period (mix of military and luxury), and 20k more recent ones (some military, many luxury type).

I know if at least 20 medieval castles within 1h of my hometown and not a single one is here.

For Spain maybe 10k to 20k castles and forts. Out of which at least 2500 genuine medieval castles (not just big houses with fortifications)

Re: Map of the world's great castles and fortresses

#64

Post by SubiculumCode » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:34 PM UTC

https://thecastlemap.com/

Peer’s Certificate issuer is not recognized.

HTTP Strict Transport Security: false HTTP Public Key Pinning: false

Certificate chain:

Re: Map of the world's great castles and fortresses

#65

Post by bluGill » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:35 PM UTC

sharkjacobs wrote: post #38

1970-01-01 wrote: post #12

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...

> # Etymology > Neither part of the monument's name is correct. ... was not a "castle" in the traditional sense, but instead may have functioned more like a "prehistoric high rise apartment complex".[8] My understanding was always that aside from vanity castles like Craigdarroch ( https://thecastle.ca ) there aren't castles in North America because they're only practical in a pre-cannon world

Castles are practical against cannons but only if built with thicker walls than typical.

Re: Map of the world's great castles and fortresses

#66

Post by Bedon292 » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:36 PM UTC

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.

Re: Map of the world's great castles and fortresses

#67

Post by RugnirViking » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #62

dbspin wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like your map lists pre-historic ring forts, not castles? I'm not sure what the 'official' definition of a castle is, but I personally wouldn't consider a crannóg or something like Dún Aonghasa a castle. Nor would I consider a stand alone tower house a castle, although they might (along with gate lodges and great houses), sometimes be colloquially referred to as castles. Surely a castle is a fortified building,…

I like the definition where castle is a fortress where a Nobel lives. Fort is where an army lives but no Nobel leader. Palace is where a Nobel lives but it isn't expected to withstand a siege

*Noble. Alfred Nobel invented stable explosives and started a Norwegian prize for achievement in science. Nobles, however, were high ranked members of the feudal hierarchy, often passing their position on to their children.

Re: Map of the world's great castles and fortresses

#68

Post by mr_toad » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:44 PM UTC

yabones wrote: post #56

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_Anne They built these th…

It’s missing the extensive Napoleonic-era Western Fortifications on the opposite side of Dover from the much more famous Dover Castle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dover_Western_Heights

But to be fair they’re much less well known, and quite well concealed, and are partly on private land, with big fences, cameras and scary warning signs. Tourists don’t seem to be much interested in post-medieval fortifications.

Re: Map of the world's great castles and fortresses

#69

Post by makeusgreat » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:50 PM UTC

Hearst Castle Missing. Please add it, it’s probably the most famous castle in California.

Re: Map of the world's great castles and fortresses

#70

Post by yabones » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:50 PM UTC

mr_toad wrote: post #68

yabones wrote: post #56

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_Anne They built these th…

It’s missing the extensive Napoleonic-era Western Fortifications on the opposite side of Dover from the much more famous Dover Castle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dover_Western_Heights But to be fair they’re much less well known, and quite well concealed, and are partly on private land, with big fences, cameras and scary warning signs. Tourists don’t seem to be much interested in post-medieval fortifications.

It's probably somewhat regional, as the ones in Canada seem to have pretty good tourism interest, especially when they're right inside a city like Quebec and Halifax.

But we're also very starved for true "Medieval Castles" like Europe or east Asia, so we take what we can get!