The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Castles in the World

24 places in 12 countries · updated 14 October 2026

1. 01 Krak des Chevaliers

   Syria · 38.9 km from Homs34.757° N 36.295° E

   • UNESCO World Heritage

   

   Krak des Chevaliers sits on a 650-metre spur at the southern end of Syria's coastal mountains, watching over the Homs Gap, the one easy corridor between the port of Tripoli and the inland city of Homs. The site was already fortified in 1031, when the Mirdasid emir of Aleppo stationed Kurdish troops here, which is why Arabic sources still call it Hisn al-Akrad, the fort of the Kurds.

   Did you know? T. E. Lawrence judged it possibly the best-preserved and most admirable castle anywhere in the world.

   More about Krak des Chevaliers →

2. 02 Castel del Monte

   Italy · 26.1 km from Barletta41.085° N 16.271° E

   • UNESCO World Heritage

   

   Seen from the surrounding countryside of northern Apulia, Castel del Monte looks less like a fortress than a stone crown set on a hilltop 540 metres up. Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Sicily, had it built in the 1240s; a document of 1240 already orders work on it. What makes it unlike any other castle is its geometry.

   Did you know? The castle combines local limestone, red coral breccia and marble, and the limestone shifts from white to pinkish as the light changes through the day.

   More about Castel del Monte →

3. 03 Tower of London

   United Kingdom · 3 km from London51.508° N 0.076° W

   • UNESCO World Heritage

   

   The Tower of London began as a statement of conquest. William the Conqueror founded it at the end of 1066, and the pale keep that gives the whole fortress its name, the White Tower, went up from 1078 as a deliberately overbearing presence above Saxon London and the river traffic of the Thames.

   Did you know? In 1252 King Haakon IV of Norway gave Henry III a polar bear, which Londoners watched fishing in the Thames on a long chain.

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4. 04 Nesvizh Castle

   Нясвіжскі палацава-паркавы комплекс

   Belarus53.223° N 26.692° E

   • UNESCO World Heritage

   

   Nesvizh Castle was the principal seat of the Radziwiłłs, the wealthiest magnate family of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and it is the grandest aristocratic residence surviving in Belarus. Its yellow Baroque ranges close around a courtyard entered through a gatehouse tower, with ponds and landscaped parkland around it.

   Did you know? Nesvizh had its own cannon foundry, the first in Belarus, which cast its first series of guns in 1576.

   More about Nesvizh Castle →

5. 05 Neuschwanstein Castle

   Schloss Neuschwanstein

   Germany47.557° N 10.749° E

   • UNESCO World Heritage

   

   The name suggests a medieval stronghold; the building is closer to a 19th-century stage set with plumbing. Ludwig II commissioned it in 1868, right after the Austro-Prussian War had stripped Bavaria of real independence and left him a king with a crown but shrinking power — and what he built instead of political influence was a retreat modelled on the operas of Richard Wagner, whom he'd idolised since adolescence.

   Did you know? It was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in July 2025 together with three other palaces of Ludwig II.

   More about Neuschwanstein Castle →

6. 06 Citadel of Aleppo

   Syria · 3.7 km from Aleppo36.199° N 37.163° E

   • UNESCO World Heritage

   

   The Citadel of Aleppo is a walled palace-fortress on a huge oval mound in the middle of the old city of Aleppo, in northern Syria, and one of the oldest and largest castles in the world. People have used the hill since at least the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, when a temple of the storm god Hadad stood on it.

   Did you know? Wells cut into the citadel mound reach about 125 metres below the summit, and tunnels link the interior to its forward towers.

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7. 07 Takht-e Soleyman

   Iran36.605° N 47.234° E

   • UNESCO World Heritage

   

   Takht-e Soleyman, the "Throne of Solomon", is a walled royal sanctuary built around a small lake that wells up from the top of a hill in the uplands of north-western Iran. The hill itself was made by the water: a mineral-rich spring has spilled over its rim for ages, laying down limestone as it flows.

   Did you know? Adur Gushnasp is the only one of the three Great Fires of Sasanian Iran whose temple building has actually been found by archaeologists.

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8. 08 Schwerin Castle

   Schweriner Schloss

   Germany · 1 km from Schwerin53.624° N 11.419° E

   • UNESCO World Heritage

   

   Schwerin Castle rises from a small island between Lake Schwerin and the city's old town, a riot of gilded domes, turrets and towers, and it is often called the "Neuschwanstein of the North". The site has been fortified since at least 973, when the Slavic Obotrites had a stronghold here.

   Did you know? The palace appears on a German two-euro commemorative coin issued in 2007, when Mecklenburg-Vorpommern held the presidency of the Bundesrat.

   More about Schwerin Castle →

9. 09 Nijō Castle

   Japan · 2 km from Kyoto35.014° N 135.748° E

   • UNESCO World Heritage

   

   Nijō Castle is a castle built to impress rather than to fight. In 1601 Tokugawa Ieyasu ordered the lords of western Japan to pay for a residence in Kyoto for the Tokugawa shoguns. The shoguns ruled from Edo, but the emperor's court remained in Kyoto. The work was finished under his grandson Iemitsu in 1626, and it included a keep and gate moved from Fushimi Castle.

   Did you know? The Ninomaru Palace includes a Musha-kakushi-no-ma, a bodyguards' chamber from which hidden guards could step out to protect the shogun.

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10. 10 Malbork Castle

    Zamek w Malborku

    Poland · 27.7 km from Elbląg54.040° N 19.028° E

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    The Teutonic Knights began building at Malbork around 1274, but the decision to make it their capital came in 1309, after they lost their last footholds in the eastern Mediterranean and needed a new centre of gravity entirely inside their own conquered territory in Prussia.

    Did you know? Measured by land area, Malbork is the largest castle in the world: its outer walls enclose about 21 hectares, four times the area of Windsor Castle.

    More about Malbork Castle →

11. 11 Castelgrande

    Switzerland · 0.5 km from Bellinzona46.193° N 9.023° E

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    Castelgrande is the oldest and largest of the three castles of Bellinzona, set on a steep outcrop of gneiss that rises straight out of the town. Bellinzona sits where the routes from several Alpine passes, the St Gotthard, the Lukmanier, the San Bernardino and the Nufenen, come together on their way south, and whoever held this rock held the road to Italy.

    Did you know? Archaeologists have traced continuous settlement on the castle rock back to the 4th millennium BC.

    More about Castelgrande →

12. 12 Kroměříž Castle

    Czech Republic · 20.3 km from Zlín49.300° N 17.393° E

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    For centuries the small Moravian town of Kroměříž was the summer seat of the bishops — from 1777 archbishops — of Olomouc, and their residence here, together with two very different gardens, was listed as a World Heritage Site in 1998. UNESCO's reasoning is candid: the palace is a fine but typical princely residence; what is rare is the Baroque garden layout that survives around it almost intact.

    More about Kroměříž Castle →

13. 13 Royal Alcázar of Segovia

    Real Alcázar de Segovia

    Spain40.953° N 4.133° W

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    The Alcázar of Segovia stands at the very western end of the old city, on a rock spur where the Eresma and Clamores rivers meet, so that from the valley floor it seems to grow straight out of the cliff.

    Did you know? The castle's silhouette is widely cited as an inspiration for the castle in Disney's 1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

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14. 14 Aljafería

    Spain · 0.9 km from Zaragoza41.656° N 0.897° W

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    The Aljafería is the finest surviving building from the taifa kingdoms, the patchwork of Muslim states that followed the break-up of the Caliphate of Córdoba. It was raised in Zaragoza for Ahmad al-Muqtadir of the Banu Hud dynasty and largely finished between 1065 and 1081.

    Did you know? The palace's architect is known by name: a Slav called Zuhayr, recorded by a Zaragoza writer active in the late eleventh century.

    More about Aljafería →

15. 15 Himeji Castle

    Japan34.839° N 134.694° E

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    Himeji Castle is the finest surviving example of a classic Japanese castle, and its buildings have stood intact since the early 17th century. Its brilliant white plastered walls and layered roofs, rising in tiers above the city like a bird taking wing, have earned it the name Shirasagi-jō, White Heron Castle.

    Did you know? When the government planned to demolish the castle in the Meiji era, an army colonel, Nakamura Shigeto, saved it; a stone monument to him stands inside the first gate.

    More about Himeji Castle →

16. 16 Kronborg Castle

    Kronborg

    Denmark · 6.3 km from Helsingborg56.039° N 12.622° E

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    Kronborg sits on a spit of land at the very north-eastern tip of Zealand, where the Øresund narrows to about 4 km and Sweden is plainly visible across the water. Whoever held this point could watch every ship entering or leaving the Baltic, and for four centuries Danish kings did exactly that, charging the Sound Dues on each cargo.

    Did you know? Ship captains had to declare the value of their cargo for the Sound Dues, and the king could buy it at that price, which discouraged under-declaring.

    More about Kronborg Castle →

17. 17 Wartburg

    Germany50.966° N 10.306° E

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    In 1521 Martin Luther arrived at Wartburg not as a guest but as a fugitive — the Diet of Worms had just declared him an outlaw whom anyone could kill without consequence, and his protector Frederick the Wise hid him here disguised as a minor nobleman, "Junker Jörg," beard grown out and sword at his side.

    Did you know? Wartburg was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999.

    More about Wartburg →

18. 18 Caernarfon Castle

    United Kingdom53.139° N 4.277° W

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    Caernarfon Castle does not look like the other fortresses Edward I raised in Wales. Instead of round towers it has many-sided ones, and its long curtain walls are striped with bands of differently coloured stone. Historians have long debated why.

    Did you know? The town's name comes from the Welsh y gaer yn Arfon, roughly 'the stronghold in the land facing Anglesey', a nod to the Roman fort nearby.

    More about Caernarfon Castle →

19. 19 Conwy Castle

    United Kingdom53.280° N 3.826° W

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    Few medieval fortresses still look as complete from a distance as Conwy. Eight great round towers rise from a rocky ridge above the estuary of the River Conwy in North Wales, linked by high curtain walls of dark stone, and from the castle a ring of town walls with twenty-one towers and three gateways runs right round the old town.

    Did you know? The castle is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd.

    More about Conwy Castle →

20. 20 Mir Castle Complex

    Belarus53.451° N 26.473° E

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    Mir's five towers and thick brick curtain wall went up at the end of the 15th century under the magnate Yuri Ilyinich, at a time when Tatar raiding parties and feuds between rival Lithuanian noble clans made an unfortified manor a liability. It's a castle built for a specific, grinding kind of insecurity — not one campaign, but decades of it.

    Did you know? In 1942 the German occupiers turned the castle into a ghetto for about 1,800 local Jews; on 9 August more than 250 of them escaped.

    More about Mir Castle Complex →

21. 21 Citadel of Salah Ed-Din

    Syria · 25.9 km from Latakia35.596° N 36.057° E

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    The Citadel of Salah Ed-Din, known to the Crusaders as Saône and in Arabic also as Sahyun, occupies a narrow, wooded ridge between two deep ravines in the coastal mountains of north-western Syria.

    Did you know? Saladin's son az-Zahir Ghazi broke into the castle at its north end, where the ditch meant to cut off the adjoining town had never been finished.

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22. 22 Harlech Castle

    United Kingdom52.860° N 4.109° W

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    Harlech Castle sits on a crag of grey-green sandstone some sixty metres above the coastal flats of Cardigan Bay, with the mountains of Eryri behind it and the sea spread out in front.

    Did you know? Harlech is one of four Edwardian castles in Gwynedd inscribed together as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986.

    More about Harlech Castle →

23. 23 Royal Alcázar of Seville

    Spain · 2.5 km from Seville37.384° N 5.991° W

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    The Royal Alcázar of Seville is a palace built as a sequence of courtyards, each opening into the next: arcades carved with lace-like plaster, tiled walls, pools and channels of water, and beyond them a maze of gardens full of orange trees and palms.

    Did you know? Arabic inscriptions in Pedro I's palace refer to the Christian king as 'Sultan Don Bidru'.

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24. 24 Palazzo dei Normanni

    Italy · 1.8 km from Palermo38.111° N 13.353° E

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    The Palazzo dei Normanni sits on the highest point of old Palermo, where an Arab emir's fortress once stood between two now-vanished rivers, and it has been a seat of power almost continuously for a thousand years. After the Norman conquest of 1072 the new rulers built a royal residence and administrative centre here, with four towers and textile workshops.

    Did you know? In 1801 the astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi, working from an observatory installed in the palace's Pisan Tower, discovered Ceres, the first asteroid ever identified.

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