I built this map from open data. Every point is one of 5,793 castles, fortresses, palaces and ruins across 138 countries: 2,591 castles, 1,180 fortresses, 934 palaces and 1,088 ruins. The density is the story. Europe blazes while most of the planet stays dark.

It is a curated atlas, not a complete inventory. Germany alone has an estimated 25,000 castle sites (According to some sources). A landmark makes the map when it has a real photo on Wikimedia Commons, a Wikipedia article and exact coordinates in Wikidata, balanced across countries so the map stays explorable. France leads with 351.

You can explore every one interactively at https://thecastlemap.com/ with photos, founding centuries and short stories, plus a daily Guess the Castle game. There are no ads or sign up, everything CC0 and free to download.

  • groet@feddit.orgEnglish
    72·
    11 hours ago

    This shows how incredibly biased wikipedia is. I don’t think there is a single place in Perus mountains that is not in sight of an Inca ruin. I would bet a lot of money they beat germanies 25.000 by at least a factor of 10.

    Still cool, but its more of a “map of sights that have a wikipedia article” than a “map of castles and ruins”

    • Flightmussy@sopuli.xyzOP
      3·
      3 hours ago

      I have also thought about Inca ruins because of its history. Thank you for this comment.

      Wikipedia should have some of them covered, but I have to get it parsed differently than castles in UK for example. I will try to solve it later see if I can get some of them at least verified and include them on the map.

      • groet@feddit.orgEnglish
        1·
        3 hours ago

        Yeah I think many of them are also listed as part of a larger archeological site and not individual buildings. The palace of the Inca at Machu Picchu doesn’t have its own page on wikipedia.

        For most ruins I fear they are not listed online anywhere at all

        Edit: maybe turning it around and going with OSM data first and then linking the sites to wikipedia is more effective? OSM has pretty good searchable databases of archeological sites and individual buildings. The royal palace is listed as a “manor house” in close proximity to the “tourist attraction and archeological site” of Machu Picchu

      • groet@feddit.orgEnglish
        2·
        3 hours ago

        Well they list separate numbers for fortress, castle, palace and ruins

    • gedfromgont@piefed.caEnglish
      4·
      7 hours ago

      Well the data has to come from somewhere. Is there any place online where these are recorded?

      • groet@feddit.orgEnglish
        1·
        3 hours ago

        I don’t think there is anything like a comprehensive list of Inca ruins online. If there even exists a list it will probably be with the ministry of culture of Peru and most likely in paper form. Also in Spanish of course.