id: de-schwangau-neuschwanstein
name: Neuschwanstein Castle
name_local: Schloss Neuschwanstein
tradition: european_post_medieval
location:
  country: DE
  region: Bavaria
  locality: Schwangau
  lat: 47.5576
  lon: 10.7498
built:
  from: 1869
  to: 1886
condition: intact
definitions_met:
  fortified_residence:
    verdict: 'no'
    basis: Built 1869-1886 as a romantic retreat for Ludwig II with no defensive intent at
      any stage. It has no wall walks, no flanking fire and no gatehouse meant to be held;
      the castle form is a stage set. Fails the defensibility half of the criterion outright,
      and the private-lordly-residence half is met only trivially.
  palatial_seat:
    verdict: 'yes'
    basis: A high-status unfortified royal residence bearing a castle-word (Schloss). UNESCO
      inscribed it in 2025 within 'The Palaces of King Ludwig II of Bavaria', using the palace
      frame; German and English official communications for the identical property use 'castles'
      and 'palaces' interchangeably.
  revival_folly:
    verdict: 'yes'
    basis: Built after the defensive era in castle form - towers, curtain-wall silhouette,
      battlements - for aesthetic and symbolic purposes, with no defensive intent at any point.
      A textbook nineteenth-century romantic revival.
  popular_castle:
    verdict: 'yes'
    basis: Very probably the most photographed 'castle' on Earth, universally signposted,
      marketed and described as one by its own operator and by German national tourism.
  enclosure_fortification:
    verdict: 'no'
    basis: No defensive enclosure; the site is a rock spur built over for picturesque effect.
  state_fortification:
    verdict: 'no'
    basis: Never a military installation. Commissioned privately by Ludwig II from his own
      funds, not by the Bavarian state as a work of defence.
register_entries:
- register: wikidata
  ref: Q4152
  url: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4152
disputed: false
first_seen: '2026-07-21'
last_updated: '2026-07-21'
confidence: high
sources:
- url: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1726
  title: The Palaces of King Ludwig II of Bavaria
  publisher: UNESCO World Heritage Centre
  date: '2025'
- url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuschwanstein_Castle
  title: Neuschwanstein Castle
  publisher: Wikipedia
signals:
- sig-20260721-neuschwanstein-unesco-palace
- sig-20260721-neuschwanstein-built-1869
notes: The type case for this entire dataset. Neuschwanstein fails every scholarly definition
  of a castle and is simultaneously the most famous castle in the world. Any dataset forced
  to answer yes or no about it will be wrong in one direction or the other; the band model
  simply records both facts and stops arguing.