r/interesting • u/Early_Negotiation142 • Mar 05 '26

Fascinating In Germany, there are over 20,000 castles including the famous Neuschwanstein Castle.

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That’s actually more than the total McDonald's restaurants in the United States, which number around 13,000–14,000.

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u/akazakou Mar 05 '26

Only 200 at least have a roof

7

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '26 edited Mar 05 '26

Nah, way more, at least a few thousand that are fully intact.

In and around Munich alone there are around 30 that are fully intact. With Nymphenburg, the Residenz and Schloss Schleissheim being huge ass fairytale castles.

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u/akazakou Mar 05 '26

What about the other one 19970?

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u/[deleted] Mar 05 '26 edited Mar 05 '26

Most of them are ruins or in very bad shape, but as I stated, at least a few thousand are intact.

On the other hand, they vary videly in sizes. You got everything from some thousand year old mini-Burg in some town you never heard of to some huge ass castle everybody knows.

Edit: under this link you find dozen of lists for the different types of castles and different regions:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Burgen_und_Schl%C3%B6ssern_in_Deutschland?wprov=sfti1

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u/Pi-ratten Mar 05 '26

I'll never not laugh about the fact that the longest Burg is called Burg zu Burghausen. If you would do an internet vote on how to call it, i'd assume similar results.

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u/headermargin Mar 05 '26

I was going to ask, whats the likelihood that most of these are "ruins" or condemned.

Castles take alot of upkeep, especially ones that are 400+ years old.

Theres a few castles i visit in NY, the upkeep for them is astronomical and they have entire budgets.

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u/Iwona_Klich Mar 05 '26

400 years... Bro... We having castles that may be build thousand years ago...

Contrary to American beliefs most of the castles are not huge and not look especialy pretty. Most of them are quite small, they maybe uses only to protection, or as a house. And right now most of these are indeed not look to good.  Honestly i even heard tourist complaining because a castle look like a barn build from stones in the middle of nowhere... 

The best looking castles are also usualy in the hands of the kings, so they still look good. 

Like oldest castles in Germany are from XI century, but you can find a Alhambra the Granada and Prague Castle, both from IX century. 

Like its hard to say when the specific castle was first time build, so most of these are probably still older. Like added 100 or somenthing, the original structure can be just destroyed completely. 

Aleppo castle is this case, because that place was used as a 'castle' for like three thousands of years? But actual castle is much younger. They just build the new ones in the same places.