The Most Beautiful Ancient Castles, Palaces and Fortresses in the World
8 places in 6 countries · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful ancient castles, palaces and fortresses in the world are Castel Sant'Angelo (Italy), Tower of Hercules (Spain) and Diocletian's Palace (Croatia). The list covers 8 ancient castles, palaces and fortresses in 6 countries. Germany has the most, with 2. Last updated 14 October 2026.
Ancient fortifications and palaces are the oldest surviving architecture of power, built long before the castle as a type existed. Bronze Age kings, Babylonian rulers and Roman emperors used walls and gates not only to keep enemies out but to announce who ruled within, which is why their entrances are carved with lions, glazed with dragons or faced with colossal blocks. What survives has usually lived several lives, turned into fortress, church, prison or museum, and that layering is part of its appeal.
The Lion Gate at Mycenae, from the thirteenth century BC, crowns its lintel with two carved lions and is one of the oldest monumental sculptures in Europe. The Ishtar Gate of Babylon, built under Nebuchadnezzar II, now stands reconstructed in Berlin with its blue glazed bricks and rows of bulls and dragons. The Walls of Jerusalem, rebuilt by the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in the sixteenth century, follow lines laid down in antiquity around the Old City.
Rome supplies the rest. Castel Sant'Angelo began as the mausoleum of Hadrian and became a papal fortress linked to the Vatican by a raised corridor. Diocletian's Palace in Split, built for the emperor's retirement around AD 300, still holds a living town within its walls. The Porta Nigra in Trier is the best preserved Roman city gate north of the Alps, its sandstone darkened by time, and the Tower of Hercules in A Coruña is the oldest Roman lighthouse still in use.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Castel Sant'Angelo | Castle | Italy | |
| 2 | Tower of Hercules | Fortified tower | Spain | ✓ |
| 3 | Diocletian's Palace | Palace | Croatia | ✓ |
| 4 | Porta Nigra | City gate | Germany | ✓ |
| 5 | Walls of Jerusalem | City walls | Israel | ✓ |
| 6 | Lion Gate, Mycenae | City gate | Greece | |
| 7 | Ishtar Gate | City gate | Germany | |
| 8 | Domus Aurea | Ruins | Italy |
01 Castel Sant'Angelo
Italy · 1.4 km from Rome41.903° N 12.466° E
Image by rainhard2 from Pixabay Hadrian started building his own tomb in 123 CE and didn't live to see it finished — it was completed in 139 under his successor Antoninus Pius, a cylindrical drum of a monument meant to hold the ashes of an emperor and his family for eternity. Eternity lasted about three centuries as a mausoleum.
Did you know? The current bronze angel by Peter Anton von Verschaffelt replaced a 1536 marble Saint Michael by Raffaello da Montelupo in 1753.
02 Tower of Hercules
Torre de Hércules
Spain · 6.3 km from A Coruña43.386° N 8.406° W
- UNESCO World Heritage
Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez (Lmbuga) · CC BY-SA 3.0 There were dozens of lighthouses like this one once, scattered around the edges of the Roman world. There is exactly one left that still works.
Did you know? Of the tower's roughly 55 metres, about 34 are surviving Roman masonry; the top 21 metres were added during the 18th-century restoration.
03 Diocletian's Palace
Dioklecijanova palača
Croatia · 2.9 km from Split43.508° N 16.438° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by neufal54 from Pixabay Diocletian, the emperor who divided power among four rulers and then did something rare for a Roman emperor — abdicated, in 305 — chose a peninsula on the Dalmatian coast for his retirement, a few kilometres from Salona, the provincial capital.
Did you know? In the 7th century a small church of St Martin was built above the Golden Gate.
04 Porta Nigra
Germany · 18.1 km from Grevenmacher49.760° N 6.644° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by connie_sf from Pixabay The Porta Nigra is the only survivor of the four gates that once closed the roughly rectangular circuit of Roman Trier, and today it is one of the best-preserved Roman city gates north of the Alps. It was raised in the late second century, after about 170 AD, from large blocks of grey sandstone.
Did you know? Tree-ring dating of timber from the city wall, published in 2018, fixed the start of construction at 170 AD, after estimates had ranged from the 2nd to the 4th century.
05 Walls of Jerusalem
Israel · 2 km from Jerusalem31.775° N 35.228° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
איתן פרמן 13:56, 4 December 2006 (UTC) · Public domain The walls that ring the Old City of Jerusalem enclose an area of about one square kilometre that holds sites sacred to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Their line is ancient, but the stones you see today are mostly Ottoman. Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent ordered the ruined fortifications rebuilt, partly on older foundations, and the work was carried out between about 1537 and 1541.
Did you know? According to legend, Suleiman executed his two architects for leaving Mount Zion outside the walls; two graves inside the Jaffa Gate are popularly said to be theirs.
06 Lion Gate, Mycenae
Πύλη των Λεόντων
Greece37.731° N 22.756° E
Andreas Trepte · CC BY-SA 2.5 The Lion Gate was the main entrance to the citadel of Mycenae in the Argolid, the fortress that gave its name to the late Bronze Age civilisation of mainland Greece. It was built around 1250 BC, when the circuit of walls was extended to enclose more of the hill, and it has never been buried: it has stood in view for more than three thousand years.
Did you know? The travel writer Pausanias saw and described the gate in the 2nd century AD, roughly 1,400 years after it was built.
07 Ishtar Gate
Ischtar-Tor
Germany · 0.4 km from Berlin52.521° N 13.396° E
LBM1948 · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Ishtar Gate was the eighth gate of the inner city of Babylon, built around 569 BC by King Nebuchadnezzar II and dedicated to the goddess Ishtar. It is one of the most dazzling survivals of the ancient world.
Did you know? In Berlin, hundreds of crates of glazed fragments were desalinated and pieced together, with gaps filled by new bricks fired in a specially built kiln to match the colours.
08 Domus Aurea
Italy · 1.4 km from Rome41.891° N 12.495° E
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain Buried under the Oppian Hill, a stone's throw from the Colosseum, lie the vaulted halls of the most extravagant palace ancient Rome ever saw.
Did you know? An artificial lake in Nero's grounds occupied the valley where the Colosseum was later built.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful ancient castles, palaces and fortresses in the world?
- On our list, Castel Sant'Angelo (Italy) ranks first, followed by Tower of Hercules (Spain) and Diocletian's Palace (Croatia).
- Which country has the most ancient castles, palaces and fortresses in the world?
- In our collection, the most come from Germany (2), Italy (2) and Croatia (1).
- What is the oldest working lighthouse in the world?
- The Tower of Hercules in A Coruña, Spain, built by the Romans in the first or second century AD, is the oldest lighthouse still in use. Its exterior was remodelled in the late eighteenth century around the Roman core.
- Where is the Ishtar Gate today?
- A reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate using original glazed bricks excavated at Babylon stands in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. Other bricks and panels from the gate are held by museums around the world, and the original foundations remain in Iraq.
- Why is it called Castel Sant'Angelo?
- According to legend, the Archangel Michael appeared above Hadrian's mausoleum in 590 to signal the end of a plague in Rome. The building took his name, and a statue of the angel stands on its summit.
- How many ancient castles, palaces and fortresses are on this list in the world?
- The list covers 8 ancient castles, palaces and fortresses in 6 countries. Germany has the most, with 2.