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Comment by Flightmussy | Hacker News Reader

Hi thanks for the feedback and thank you Marklit to submit it here!

Thecastlemap.com is one of the websites I operate. I also operate trainrouter.com, sunshineatlas.com. and europebeachmap.com.

Honestly, I did not want to focus too much on this website due to what I thought of a market of low demand. However, there are so many critical comments. Hence, I will fix it properly and this will be one of the websites I will fully commit to.

I appreciate everything guys even if you probably do not like the website. The reason why I made the website is because I reallly like castles....

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Nice project, but unfortunately (as others have also commented) a bit incomplete. Some stuff missing in Romania (which I'm reasonably familiar with):

- Arad fortress (similar to Alba Iulia, but less well known, currently a military base): https://maps.app.goo.gl/a2Dw3W2CKCpU7cJA7

- Oradea fortress (same as above, but open to the public): https://maps.app.goo.gl/a2Dw3W2CKCpU7cJA7

- Târgu Mureș fortress (slightly smaller than the ones above, but also notable): https://maps.app.goo.gl/qcwSFL9hGqoCZXWv7

- plus lots of villages and smaller towns in Transylvania also have fortresses or fortified churches: Biertan https://maps.app.goo.gl/VVMkpaFbf7HJjbPQA, Râșnov https://maps.app.goo.gl/1LnB5h2sTj1WRmTk7, Saschiz https://maps.app.goo.gl/Yb5dDz38xXyy8JEZ7, Viscri https://maps.app.goo.gl/318uMB1fEvpqXSzi7, Rupea https://maps.app.goo.gl/6hTM8PtkQhQxXcyG8

There is a lot of stuff missing. I'm from a region in Germany where every other village has it's own castle, ruin or palace. There needs to be some selection, otherwise it's just more overwhelming. Therefore I do like the map, and it's very good imho that there is some tier-selector to pick out the good ones.

The trouble is that the definition of "castle" varies considerably between countries. For instance, the German classification divides them into "Schloss" and "Burg", but these can include anything from earthworks to barely present ruined remains of a foundation to buildings that resemble a larger than average house. French classification - under the term "chateau" and its subdivisions - is even more generous. Compare that with the Polish classification which is more strict and precise, differentiating between manors, palaces, strongholds, and permanent fortified complexes, for instance.

Sure, you could argue forever what should be included, what's significant enough (only still existing buildings or also ruins? how well-known does it have to be?), if only historical castles should be included or also things like Hearst Castle in California (which is actually a large mansion built in historical style, with the main building looking like a church - if that's included, you could also include, say, Mar-a-Lago?).

It is also important in context to include castles in Africa to show that the area did contain castles. This fact often surprises people that Africa has castles and some of them dating back to the 11 century.

For example just by looking from my eye you are missing Lamu Castle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamu_Fort Siyu Fort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siyu Thimlich Ohingahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thimlich_Ohinga

And then in Tanzania you have the Gerezani Fort in Kilwa Kisiwani, the Old Fort of Zanzibar, the German Fort in Bagamoyo. And then Taleh Fort in Somalia.

I have not even started on either Mozambique, or Angola.

The importance of the definition is to actually save the castles. For example in Lower Silesia in Poland, which was Germany, and Czech before, there where about 2000 Castles (Schloss's). Now many of these castles lay in ruins. By only including the popular ones like this map does it means the less famous ones will become even less popular, and a piece of history will disappear.

An Italian friend was excited to visit a castle, and on arrival disappointedly exclaimed "but this is a "fortezza!".

In our tiny little village of 2000 people, we have 4 small castles (chateaux). Next one also has some. So does next one.

Its fine if its not exhaustive list. All major I could think of in few european countries I could find with all info correctly. Thank you for this effort, much appreciated.

I hope I don't get into hot water here, but (without knowing the buildings you are referring to) one person's large villa/mansion can be another person's small chateau, so I'd argue that probably not all small chateaux have to be included :)

As the other commenter said: Europe is filled to the brim with fortifications and castles. It's almost pointless to make a complete map - every second place will have one. So I agree with the approach of having a selection. But how to select? Here of course everybody will disagree - on one hand we surely have the obvious and well known tourist hotspots, but on the other hand basically everything else can fall under "hidden gems". Transylvania only has over 150 such fortified churches... what can you do with so much raw information?

Please don't be detered by the less constructive comments, there are a myriad of approaches one could take and it's impossible to please everyone. Even if it has failings I think it's a great site and I'm grateful. Plus let's not forget it's delightfully free of advertising/ pushy banners to sign-up or pay!

Again! Thank you everyone! The feedback really helps.

I am slowly but surely fixing based from the feedback I get here om Hacker News.

I am citing the users on the changelog a way to show my thanks: https://thecastlemap.com/changelog/

I am going outside to stay out in the sun for a bit now:)

I am going to the Akershus festning! This is my local castle and the view is crazy

Hi there and thank you, I guess we all love castles.

Just went to check a few randomly and saw the map lacks the Citadel of Acre, which is really quite impressive https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g297736-d324... (It's in Akko, northern Israel)

hope that will help you find and fix some other misses in your dataset.

At the moment the project is going viral. I am so thankful from everyone!

It sucks that I cannot properly communicate because feedback is spread on the internet, which is making it really hard to address them.

Therefore I will put my X account here for those who are interested: https://x.com/Flightmussy

Missing one of my favorite in USA which I will not mention here because it is unofficially open to the public and i don't want that to change...

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