The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses in Denmark
5 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful castles, palaces and fortresses in Denmark are Frederiksborg Palace, Egeskov Castle and Kronborg Castle. The list covers 5 castles, palaces and fortresses. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Denmark has no mountains to build on, so its castles defend themselves with water. Lakes, moats and the narrow Øresund, where for centuries ships paid toll to the Danish crown, shaped fortresses and palaces alike, and the wealth of the Renaissance kings turned them into some of the most decorative buildings in Northern Europe.
Frederiksborg Palace, built for Christian IV in the early 17th century, rises in red brick and sandstone from three islets in a lake at Hillerød. Egeskov on Funen, completed in 1554, is a moated Renaissance castle standing in its own water. Kronborg at Helsingør, the Elsinore of Shakespeare's Hamlet, commands the narrowest point of the Øresund. Kastellet in Copenhagen is a star-shaped fortress with ramparts and moats almost perfectly preserved, and Hammershus on Bornholm, the largest castle ruin in Northern Europe, crowns a cliff above the Baltic.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Frederiksborg Palace | Palace | |
| 2 | Egeskov Castle | Castle | |
| 3 | Kronborg Castle | Castle | ✓ |
| 4 | Kastellet | Star fort | |
| 5 | Hammershus | Castle |
01 Frederiksborg Palace
Denmark · 1 km from Hillerød55.935° N 12.301° E
Original uploader was Kresten Hartvig Klit at da.wikipedia · CC BY-SA 2.5 The approach is part of the show. On the way in stands the Neptune Fountain, a work designed by Adriaen de Vries in 1620–1622. Swedish troops carried the original away as booty in 1659; what stands now is a copy made in 1888. The palace faces are richly carved, with sandstone figures, cartouches and window surrounds that stand out against the dark red brick, and the whole mass is doubled in the water of the Slotssø.
Did you know? The Treaty of Frederiksborg, ending the Great Northern War between Denmark-Norway and Sweden, was signed at the castle in July 1720.
02 Egeskov Castle
Denmark · 14.3 km from Svendborg55.176° N 10.489° E
Malene Thyssen · CC BY-SA 3.0 After many changes of owner in its first centuries, the castle has stayed in one family line since 1784, when the Bille-Brahes acquired it. Since 1882 it has belonged to the counts Ahlefeldt-Laurvig-Bille, who still live in part of it. The rest is open to visitors. The rooms hold a massive iron chest from at least the 16th century and a large portrait of Admiral Niels Juel, who defeated the Swedish fleet at Køge Bay in 1677.
Did you know? Its bricks are an oversized medieval type known as monks' bricks, and the walls conceal early sanitation shafts for waste.
03 Kronborg Castle
Kronborg
Denmark · 6.3 km from Helsingborg56.039° N 12.622° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
ArildV · CC BY-SA 4.0 The castle is a closed square of wings around a courtyard, ringed by bastions, with a series of moats and gates guarding the approach from the town. Inside, the ballroom of the south wing, 62 by 12 metres, was the largest hall in Northern Europe when it was finished in 1582; its walls now carry large paintings made for Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen.
Did you know? Queen Caroline Matilda, sister of George III of Britain, was imprisoned here in 1772 after the scandal of her affair with Johann Friedrich Struensee.
04 Kastellet
Denmark · 2.4 km from Copenhagen55.692° N 12.594° E
CucombreLibre from New York, NY, USA · CC BY 2.0 Kastellet was part of Copenhagen's defence against the British in 1807 and fell to German troops without resistance on 9 April 1940. Two Dutch baroque gates survive from Rüse's original work: the ornate King's Gate facing the city and the plainer Norway Gate to the north.
Did you know? After a powder house on Copenhagen's East Rampart blew up in 1779, explosives were judged too dangerous here and the citadel's powder houses became jails.
05 Hammershus
Denmark55.271° N 14.756° E
Johan Wessman / News Oresund · CC BY 2.0 The castle is thought to date from the early thirteenth century, perhaps built by agreement between King Valdemar II and Anders Sunesen, Archbishop of Lund, and for most of the Middle Ages it belonged to the archbishops. That made it a prize in the long struggle between Danish kings and the Church: royal forces took it in 1265, and again in 1319; in 1324–1325 it withstood a siege of sixteen months before surrendering.
Did you know? The rebel who actually killed Swedish governor Printzensköld in 1658 was Villum Clausen, one of Kofoed's band.
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 Denmark?
- On our list, Frederiksborg Palace ranks first, followed by Egeskov Castle and Kronborg Castle.
- Is Kronborg the castle in Hamlet?
- Yes. Shakespeare set Hamlet in Elsinore, the English name for Helsingør, and Kronborg is the castle there. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- Why is Egeskov Castle surrounded by water?
- It was built in a lake as a defensive measure, on foundations of oak piles. The name Egeskov means oak forest, and legend says a whole forest was felled for the piles.
- What is the largest castle ruin in Northern Europe?
- Hammershus on the Danish island of Bornholm, a medieval fortress on a cliff above the Baltic Sea that was abandoned in the 18th century.
- How many castles, palaces and fortresses are on this list in Denmark?
- The list covers 5 castles, palaces and fortresses.