id: de-moritzburg-schloss
name: Moritzburg Castle
name_local: Schloss Moritzburg
tradition: european_post_medieval
location:
  country: DE
  region: Saxony
  locality: Moritzburg
  lat: 51.1672
  lon: 13.6806
built:
  from: 1542
  to: 1546
  period: rebuilt as a baroque palace 1723-1736
condition: intact
definitions_met:
  fortified_residence:
    verdict: 'no'
    basis: A hunting lodge rebuilt as a baroque palace on an artificial island. The water
      setting is ornamental rather than defensive - no wall walks, no parapets, no flanking
      fire - so it fails the active-defence test even though it is surrounded by water.
  palatial_seat:
    verdict: 'yes'
    basis: 'The paradigm Schloss: an early-modern unfortified lordly residence bearing a castle-word,
      rebuilt 1723-1736 for Augustus the Strong as a baroque hunting palace.'
  popular_castle:
    verdict: 'yes'
    basis: Marketed and signposted as Schloss Moritzburg and routinely rendered 'Moritzburg
      Castle' in English-language tourism copy.
  revival_folly:
    verdict: 'no'
    basis: Not a post-defensive-era build in castle form for effect; it is a genuine early-modern
      residence in baroque idiom, which is a different thing.
  enclosure_fortification:
    verdict: 'no'
    basis: No defensive enclosure of any period on the site.
  state_fortification:
    verdict: 'no'
    basis: A private electoral residence, never a state military installation.
register_entries:
- register: wikidata
  ref: Q321045
  url: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q321045
disputed: false
first_seen: '2026-07-21'
last_updated: '2026-07-21'
confidence: high
sources:
- url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moritzburg_Castle
  title: Moritzburg Castle
  publisher: Wikipedia
- url: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burg
  title: Burg
  publisher: Wikipedia (de)
  note: The standing Burg/Schloss distinction this record turns on.
notes: 'In Saxony, the region whose 700-against-9 coverage gap provoked the originating thread.
  Moritzburg is the clean case for why that gap is definitional as well as numerical: it is
  unambiguously a Schloss and unambiguously not a Burg, and a dataset with one castle field
  has to lie about one of those.'