Germany has more castles than the United States has McDonald’s. This is the Eltz castle, located in Wiershem. It has been owned and occupied by the same family for 33 generations over 800 years

[u/The_Love-Tap]

[u/Cold_Tree190]

It really isn’t. They’re including many small fortifications that no one would consider a “castle”. Things like small battlements that would have been manned by fewer than 10 people… they’re really stretching the definition of “castle” to get there

[u/allnamestaken1968 → u/Cold_Tree190]

My home is my castle so it’s included

[u/TA_Lax8 → u/allnamestaken1968]

actually, a bunch of homes "fortified" with merely a fence were included in the count

[u/Entropic_Echo_Music → u/TA_Lax8]

My house has concepts of a fence, so it counts too.

[u/cjwi → u/allnamestaken1968]

My home is my McDonald's so I'm counting that too

[u/MarcioMakaveli → u/Cold_Tree190]

Bist du deutscher? Hier im Schwarzwald haben wir viele Burgen, die können auch klein sein. Burg bleibt Burg. Größer ist dann eher schon ein Schloss, die aber wahrscheinlich auch in die Statistik einfließen.

[u/LzrdKng2112 → u/MarcioMakaveli]

Another German is in here saying only about a fifth of the castles are still standing, 40% are ruins, and another 40% are just landmarks where a castle used to be.

[u/Otaraka → u/LzrdKng2112]

Makes me wonder how many abandoned and destroyed McDonald’s there are.  Probably not quite as picturesque.

[u/LzrdKng2112 → u/Otaraka]

McDonald's dont tend to go out of business that often so I wouldnt imagine as many as you think. Ive seem tons of abandoned pizza huts, burger kings, and taco bells but never a mcdonalds

[u/MarcioMakaveli → u/LzrdKng2112]

Klar, Ruinen sind einige. Hier bei uns sogar die meisten. Aber man erkennt sie schon klar als Burg. Blick aus meinem Dachfenster: Siehst du sie?

[u/Tiomo → u/MarcioMakaveli]

Nice Burg :)

[u/axonxorz → u/[deleted]]

Crazy, the fights you can make up in your head lol

[u/axonxorz → u/[deleted]]

Because my definition of castle is more accurate then his?

Naw, because you had to invent a whole person and multiple arguments to rail against instead of sticking to your supposedly unassailable facts.

Ad hominems aren't a way to argue in "grown up world," I'm calling you out for it.

[u/Cold_Tree190 → u/[deleted]]

Okay, let's instead use the opening paragraph from the source of this 25,000 number, which is from castlecollector:

Germany has roughly 25,000 castles and palaces when you count ruins, medieval fortresses and later palatial residences together. By the strict measure of medieval castle sites, the figure is about 8,500. Either way, Germany holds more medieval castles than any country in Europe except France, which only edges ahead on the broad château count, and the reason comes down to a thousand years of political fragmentation.

If you want to count fortified houses, battlements, and ruins of castles/watch towers/manors, then go with the 25,000 figure and feel better about yourself.

If you want to count only real castles, as defined by the literal definition of what a castle is without being pedantic AND as defined by https://www.ebidat.de/ (European castle database, University of Marburg in Germany), then the figure is closed to 8,500... which is fewer than the McDonalds number in the US.

Choose whichever number you want man, I don't care one bit. But you seem to have a severe inferiority complex about a random comparison between McDonalds and castle counts. If that makes you feel better, more power to you.