The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses in Austria
5 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful castles, palaces and fortresses in Austria are Schönbrunn Palace, Belvedere, Vienna and Riegersburg Castle. The list covers 5 castles, palaces and fortresses. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Austria's castles and palaces follow the country's history from frontier to empire. Medieval lords and archbishops fortified the crags of the Alps and the volcanic hills of Styria against Hungarian and Ottoman raids, and once the threat had passed, the Habsburgs and their generals turned Vienna into a city of Baroque palaces and formal gardens.
Schönbrunn Palace, the Habsburg summer residence, sets its long yellow facade against gardens rising to the Gloriette. The Belvedere, built for Prince Eugene of Savoy by Lukas von Hildebrandt, now houses Klimt's The Kiss. Riegersburg Castle crowns a basalt rock in eastern Styria that was never taken by force. Hohensalzburg Fortress, begun in 1077, is one of the largest medieval castles in Europe and dominates the skyline of Salzburg, and Hochosterwitz in Carinthia winds up its limestone rock through a chain of fourteen gates.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Schönbrunn Palace | Palace | ✓ |
| 2 | Belvedere, Vienna | Palace | |
| 3 | Riegersburg Castle | Castle | |
| 4 | Hohensalzburg Fortress | Fortress | |
| 5 | Hochosterwitz Castle | Castle |
01 Schönbrunn Palace
Schloss Schönbrunn
Austria · 4.3 km from Vienna48.185° N 16.312° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by Sekau67 from Pixabay History settled deep into these rooms. Franz Joseph, who reigned for 68 years, was born here and died here in November 1916, two years before the monarchy fell. The palace then passed to the Austrian Republic and became a museum; after the Second World War it housed the British element of the Allied administration, and in 1961 it hosted the summit between John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev.
Did you know? The Gloriette's inscription gives its date, 1775, in an archaic Roman numeral notation, and its hall later served Franz Joseph as a breakfast room.
02 Belvedere, Vienna
Schloss Belvedere
Austria · 1.5 km from Vienna48.193° N 16.381° E
Image by lapping from Pixabay Between them lies a formal garden in the French manner designed by Dominique Girard, laid out in three large terraces with symmetrical parterres, basins, steps, cascades, clipped hedges and sculpture. The upper palace is best seen from the bottom of the garden, rising above its terraces, while from its own front the view runs back over the garden towards the inner city.
Did you know? In 1770 a masked ball was held at the Belvedere to celebrate the marriage of Archduchess Maria Antonia, the future Marie Antoinette, to the French Dauphin.
03 Riegersburg Castle
Riegersburg
Austria47.005° N 15.932° E
C.Stadler/Bwag · CC BY-SA 4.0 The first knight recorded here, Rudiger von Hohenberg, appears in 1122. In the later Middle Ages the castle belonged to the Walsee family, who came into conflict with the ruler of Styria in 1415. Its decisive period came in the 17th century under Baroness Katharina Elisabeth von Wechsler, known as the Gallerin, the most important figure in the castle's history.
Did you know? In a dispute over church patronage, the Gallerin once delivered a sermon herself in the parish church of Paldau.
04 Hohensalzburg Fortress
Festung Hohensalzburg
Austria · 1.8 km from Salzburg47.795° N 13.047° E
Image by PaulAzorcan from Pixabay For all that work, the fortress was besieged only once, in 1525 during the German Peasants' War, when miners, farmers and townspeople tried and failed to take it from Archbishop Matthäus Lang. The deposed Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau died imprisoned here in 1617, and in 1800 the fortress was surrendered to French troops without a fight. It then served as barracks, store and prison until the army left in 1861.
Did you know? During the Thirty Years' War, the Elector of Bavaria fled here with his state treasury three times, in 1632, 1646 and 1648.
05 Hochosterwitz Castle
Burg Hochosterwitz
Austria · 18.1 km from Klagenfurt46.756° N 14.452° E
Image by WikiImages from Pixabay The castle as it looks today is the work of Georg Khevenhüller, governor of Carinthia, who bought it in 1571 and turned it into the province's main stronghold against the Turkish threat. Between about 1570 and 1586 he built the approach road that makes Hochosterwitz unique: a 620-metre path winding up the rock through fourteen fortified gates, each with its own trap.
Did you know? The family crypt is in the castle church because in 1607 the Catholic parish of Villach refused to bury the Protestant Franz Khevenhüller.
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 castles, palaces and fortresses in Austria?
- On our list, Schönbrunn Palace ranks first, followed by Belvedere, Vienna and Riegersburg Castle.
- Where is Klimt's The Kiss?
- It hangs in the Upper Belvedere in Vienna, the Baroque palace built for Prince Eugene of Savoy in the early 18th century.
- How old is Hohensalzburg Fortress?
- Construction began in 1077 under Archbishop Gebhard of Salzburg, and later archbishops enlarged it into one of the largest fully preserved castles in Central Europe.
- Why does Hochosterwitz Castle have so many gates?
- The Khevenhüller family added fourteen fortified gates along the path to the summit in the 16th century, during the period of Ottoman raids, so that attackers would face one barrier after another.
- How many castles, palaces and fortresses are on this list in Austria?
- The list covers 5 castles, palaces and fortresses.