The Most Beautiful Castles in the Czech Republic
5 places · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful castles in the Czech Republic are Prague Castle, Český Krumlov Castle and Hluboká Castle. The list covers 5 castles. Last updated 14 October 2026.
Bohemia and Moravia hold one of the densest concentrations of castles in Europe, built by kings, emperors and great noble houses over a thousand years. Medieval strongholds were reshaped in Renaissance and Baroque taste, and the 19th century added romantic revivals, so Czech castles show nearly every chapter of European architecture.
Prague Castle, seat of Bohemian rulers since the 9th century, is among the largest castle complexes in the world, with St Vitus Cathedral at its centre. Český Krumlov Castle, home of the Rožmberk family, rises above a bend of the Vltava and keeps a Baroque theatre with its original stage machinery. Karlštejn, founded by Emperor Charles IV in 1348, was built to guard the imperial regalia, and its Chapel of the Holy Cross glitters with semi-precious stones. Hluboká Castle was remodelled by the Schwarzenbergs in the 19th century in a Tudor Gothic style inspired by Windsor.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Prague Castle | Castle | |
| 2 | Český Krumlov Castle | Castle | |
| 3 | Hluboká Castle | Castle | |
| 4 | Kroměříž Castle | Palace | ✓ |
| 5 | Karlštejn Castle | Castle |
01 Prague Castle
Pražský hrad
Czech Republic · 1.7 km from Prague50.090° N 14.400° E
Image by peter89ba from Pixabay Most of the grounds are open to visitors: the cathedral, the palaces, the Golden Lane of tiny houses built into the walls, the defence towers, the castle picture gallery built around what survives of Rudolf's collection, and a string of terraced gardens, including the South Gardens with views over the red roofs of the Lesser Town. The castle crowns the historic centre of Prague, on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1992, and it draws more visitors than anything else in the country, about 2.6 million in 2024, so arriving early pays off.
Did you know? By tradition dating back to Charles IV, the crown jewels go on show only on rare special occasions, and only the president can decide to display them.
02 Český Krumlov Castle
Český Krumlov
Czech Republic · 21.4 km from České Budějovice48.813° N 14.315° E
Image by Pixel-Sepp from Pixabay A visit works like a walk through the centuries. You cross the Bear Moat into the lower courtyards, painted with Renaissance sgraffito. The round tower of the 13th-century Hrádek has a 16th-century top and views over the red roofs of the town. The Rosenberg rooms hold wooden Renaissance ceilings and Brussels tapestries. Beyond the bridge, a late-Baroque garden with a cascade fountain runs west to the Bellarie summer pavilion. In the same garden stands the revolving open-air auditorium, which has hosted summer performances since 1959. Interiors are shown on guided tours.
Did you know? The gilded Golden Carriage of 1638 was used only once, to carry gifts to Pope Urban VIII announcing the accession of Emperor Ferdinand III.
03 Hluboká Castle
Zámek Hluboká nad Vltavou
Czech Republic · 8 km from České Budějovice49.051° N 14.442° E
Michal Klajban · CC BY 4.0 For a view over the whole setting, the main tower can be climbed: 245 steps lead 52 metres above the courtyard, looking out over the English-style landscape park, the surrounding forests and fields, and the town of Hluboká nad Vltavou below. The former riding hall now houses part of the Aleš South Bohemian Gallery, with Dutch and Flemish painting of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the winter garden and park make the grounds worth a long walk even without going inside.
Did you know? The coffered ceiling of the castle library was brought from Schwarzenberg Castle, the family's namesake seat.
04 Kroměříž Castle
Czech Republic · 20.3 km from Zlín49.300° N 17.393° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Pudelek (Marcin Szala) · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Flower Garden, a short walk from the palace, is the site's real rarity. Laid out by Lucchese and Tencalla, it blends late Italian Renaissance ideas with French formal design: geometric parterres, clipped hedges, fountains, greenhouses and a 244 m colonnade lined with statues, whose roof terrace gives a view over the whole plan. At its centre stands a rotunda where a Foucault pendulum — a 30 kg weight on a 25 m wire, installed in 1908 by a local teacher — still demonstrates the rotation of the Earth. Next to the palace itself lies a looser, nineteenth-century English-style landscape garden, which was damaged in the 1997 floods.
05 Karlštejn Castle
Karlštejn
Czech Republic · 23.5 km from Prague49.940° N 14.188° E
Image by martinpalata from Pixabay The regalia left in 1421, early in the Hussite Wars, and the next year the castle withstood a siege in which the attackers hurled dead bodies and cartloads of dung over the walls. The Bohemian crown jewels later returned and stayed for nearly two centuries, until 1619. Karlštejn was rebuilt in late Gothic and Renaissance style, taken by the Swedes in 1648 and then neglected, before the architect Josef Mocker restored it between 1887 and 1899 in a Gothic Revival spirit that gave the castle the silhouette it has today.
Did you know? The lower walls are faced with polished, mostly red semi-precious stones from the Ore Mountains, set in gilded mortar stamped with Charles's crowned K.
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 in the Czech Republic?
- On our list, Prague Castle ranks first, followed by Český Krumlov Castle and Hluboká Castle.
- Why was Karlštejn Castle built?
- Charles IV founded it in 1348 as a treasury for the crown jewels and holy relics of the Holy Roman Empire; the Chapel of the Holy Cross, with panel paintings by Master Theodoric, was its most sacred room.
- Is Prague Castle the largest castle in the world?
- Guinness World Records lists it as the largest ancient castle complex, covering around 70,000 square metres of palaces, churches and courtyards.
- How many castles are on this list in the Czech Republic?
- The list covers 5 castles.