Medieval castles

LATVISKI

General description

Medieval castles are fortified residences of governors (e.g. kings, their liegeman, bishops etc.) built in medieval times. In Latvia medieval castle is defined as a fortified residence of Western European conqueror, medieval castles here were built starting from 1185. Last new medieval castles with extensive fortifications were built in late 15th century.

In the area of contemporary Latvia there have been preserved in comparatively good shape (major part of castle still has got a roof and walls are not ruined) 19 medieval castles, there are also 50 - 55 castle ruins, in 60 - 68 cases there have been not preserved any remnants above the ground. Location of at least 4 medieval castles is not known even approximately.

In total in the area of Latvia there are located and mentioned 137 - 140 medieval castles and their remnants, sites of former castles (Full list of Latvian medieval castles is here). This is fairly large number of such an small country as Latvia, our neighbours have got lover "density" of medieval castles. But in European scale the density of castles in Latvia is nothing special.

All Latvian medieval castles and their remnants are protected monuments of culture. They are protected mainly as a cultural and historical testimony of medieval times, but often these constructions and their remnants have high visual value. Fortified castles have been largest structures of their time and, f.e. towers of the castles got especially thick walls. As a result even the ruins of such buildings look quite impressive. Castle ruins in Koknese, Sigulda, Rauna, Dobele, Ludza and many other places comprise original feature of landscape, beloved by tourists and photographers.

List of described medieval castles

Below are listed all the castles described in this website. Each column in this table is sortable by alphabet - just click on the header of the table. The first column - "No." - gives an order of appearance of the landmark in this website. Grey colored monuments have not been preserved up to this day.