r/interestingasfuck • u/The_Love-Tap • 22h ago

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

Post image
47.9k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

16

u/overlydelicioustea 21h ago

no way this is true

Germany has about 10k Municipalities. That would mean each would have 2-3 castles.

hardly.

9

u/dthdthdthdthdthdth 21h ago

In German you'll find the number of 25000 "Schlösser, Burgen und Ruinen". So this includes the defensive castles (and later imitations like Neuschwanstein), but also all kinds of palaces, and ruins. This will include many buildings that are more like manor houses that were build by some minor nobility and ruins where there are only a couple of stones, maybe even only some earthworks left. And by that count you can get to these 2-3 castles per municipality more easily.

9

u/DuckieGoneQuackers 20h ago

So it's click bait then. Using a vague term that covers multiple style of structures instead of one specific type that the rest the world considers a castle.

4

u/dthdthdthdthdthdth 20h ago

All of these would be considered a castle in some context elsewhere as well. There just isn't a strict definition. Most castles were small and belonged to some minor noble men, the development of defensive castles to palaces was gradually, some were build to look defensive but weren't, some ruins are still very impressive, some barely recognizable. There isn't a hard line anywhere and there isn't in the rest of the world either.

1

u/Jazzlike-_-Growth 20h ago

Not really. It's the German definition.
And it is vague, because all the buildings themselves are often vague.

And we're not the only ones.
It's pretty much identical to the French Château.

For example:
The Château de Versailles
The Château de Roquetaillade
And the Château Cheval Blanc

1

u/Technical-Mix-981 19h ago

the definition of a castle is not by any means specific. specially in countries like Spain,france,Italy or Germany. with 2000 years of construction of different buildings for protection. I would like to know your definition of a castle.

5

u/Drumbelgalf 21h ago

Most castles are not nearly in that condition and may castles we're little more than a fortified Farm.

Often you ony See the foundations or even Just a ditch

5

u/KuriboShoeMario 21h ago

They're undoubtedly just using an insanely broad term and counting everything that remotely applies. A pile of rubble that's been designated the site of a castle centuries ago probably still counts, for example.

2

u/usemarne__ 20h ago

Yet, we should just accept that a McDonald's counts as a restaurant? How many of those are above the "piles of rubble" and "basically just a ditch" classifications? /jk

1

u/4_fortytwo_2 20h ago

Yea that number even includes places where not even ruins are left, just earthworks like a ditch or whatever. Or even just historical information about a castle that existed at some point and we dont even know anymore where exactly it was.

Actual castles / castle ruins in the way most people picture them germany has more like 500 or so. Which is still a lot!

1

u/xrimane 20h ago

My municipality of 13k people in 18 towns and villages has 1 Schloss, 1 medieval Burg and 1 neohistorical Burg that I can think of of the top of my head. The next town over with 8k inhabitants has at least 2 Burgen that are well preserved.

But this area (Eifel) has long been on the borders between the power struggles of the states around us, there were counts and dukes in every other town back then.

1

u/Dornauge 17h ago

Google says, in my home town are 8 castles. Sounds plausible tbh.