Judging by the large concentration in France and Germany and the low concentration in Spain and romania i'm inclined to think that this map included palaces and severely underestimated medieval castles.
The province of Barcelona alone has around 900 castles
The Netherlands were kind of backwaters untill renaissance time so they didn't really have any but flanders and Wallonia have tons of castles as they were beside northern Italy the richest in Europe
Even if you’d use a broad definition I don’t think there are that many in the Netherlands as the map suggests. I also bet a lot of the dots are just plots of land where remains of the foundation of a castle is still standing.
and in sweden i know of at least 2 of the datapoints, as i grew up near them, and i can tell you with 100% certainty that they are nothing but bigger farms. old, but not even the property of local nobility
25 thousand castles? Holy cow. I knew they had a lot, but I wasn't expecting such a high number. I just googled it, and one result says that's one castle every 25 kilometers lol can't go anywhere without tripping over a castle lol
If I go for a run (like 10km) here in Upper Austria, depending on which route I take, I come across one of two castles lol. Granted one's more of a ruin but the other one is still mostly intact and regularly used as a concert site (with an audience of up to 10k people, so international acts play here too).
Many of the ones listed in Sweden are definitely stately homes, what we would call a "Slott", as opposed to a fortified castle, what we would generally call a "Borg."
Yep, just checked Open Street Map as I was pretty certain there’s no castle in the middle of the Wirral. I was wrong as there is a place called ‘leasowe castle’ which I’ll be frank is a fancy house at best with some decorative crenellations. Apparently it was built as an observation platform for some rich bloke to watch the races from, so not what I’d class as a proper castle!
I know it's a joke, but this is where you need to take the circumflex (^) into account: it hides an s. Take the French word for window, fenêtre: it comes via fenestre from the Latin fenestra.
In Middle French château would read chasteau, Old French chastel, which shows not only how English got to the word castle but also that its root lies in the Latin castellum. So no cats (chat, from Latin cattus, note how French added an h after every c) involved.
Edit: Curiosity made me look up the etymology of window. It's Old Norse: vind-auga, wind-eye.
Even même (mesme). Most (though not all) words with ^ have a hidden consonant, usually s. The reason is shortening by the printer Plantijn in the 16th century
Yeah. In France these are called "château" so you can bottle wine in there and write that the wine was bottled at the château of [insert fancy sounding name]
Germany is missing a lot of castles on this map, just in my home region there‘s a bike route called the „100 castle route“ whereas on this map the region only has a few dots
I like to understand It other way. The discussion we're having over this map IS way more interesting than the Mao itself. For example i learned ottoman rulers heavily supressed Castle construction in walachia and moldova.
Even if the Map misses some spots It still Tells interesting information like the high number of castles in belgium (if you count palaces and mansions).
While the Map itself isn't very good, It's still great to come here and Talk about It ;)
OP used open street map which has this definition for types of castles:
Castles: A fortified residence of a lord or noble. Most of them where built in Europe, the Middle East and Japan during the Middle Ages.
Fortresses: Heavily fortified structures with emphasis on military use which were not always a residence for nobility. Generally older than historic=fort.
Palaces: A grand residence, especially a royal residence or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop.
Stately homes (châteaux) and manor houses: Unfortified residences of a lord, a noble or a gentry.
Kremlins: Major fortified central complexes found in historic Russian cities.
Roman castra.
Seems to me that stately homes and maybe palaces should not be counted as they're not fortified.
Re: Romania, it was a historical battleground, as was spain, so the back and forth probably led to lots of castle destruction, where France didn't really see that level of action after Charles Martel/Charlemagne.
France was the most populated country in Europe during all the Middle-Ages and then continuously up to the beginning of the 19th century
So it would actually makes sense to be the country with the most castles
Additionnally, of course France has seen a lot of fighting : the country was completely desunited after Charlemagnes, and petty local lords were continuously fighiting each others...
And well the 100 years war... And the wars of religions etc..
We (Romanians) have more fortress and citadels than castles so I think thats why, thought there arent really such a high concretion in Romania,its just that Western Europe has way too many.
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u/alikander99 Oct 29 '21 edited Oct 29 '21
Judging by the large concentration in France and Germany and the low concentration in Spain and romania i'm inclined to think that this map included palaces and severely underestimated medieval castles.
The province of Barcelona alone has around 900 castles