JH.
← All Side Quests
Sep 6, 2026Visualization

Stone & Signal

Explore 5,793 castles, fortresses, palaces, and ruins through geography, founding eras, and the uneven trail of modern online attention.

Start here

A quick guide to this quest.

A castle can dominate a landscape yet barely register online, while another appears in dozens of Wikipedia language editions. This project connects the dataset’s physical coordinates and founding years with two measures of digital attention, while keeping missing and approximate dates visible.

  1. Begin with the atlas

    Circle size shows how many source records appear in each country. Select a circle to open that country’s highest-ranked landmark.

  2. Climb the time tower

    Compare broad founding eras, filter the discovery shelf, and see how the four landmark categories differ.

  3. Enter the signal room

    Compare Wikipedia language editions with recent pageviews, then save up to three landmarks in your personal trail.

Language reach
The number of Wikipedia language editions that have an article about a landmark.
Pageviews
Visits to a landmark’s Wikipedia articles during the trailing 365-day period captured by the source.
Fame rank
The source’s blended ordering based on language reach and recent pageviews; it is not a measure of historical value.
Founding year
The year attached to the landmark in Wikidata. Some dates are approximate and many records have no year.
Side Quest / VisualizationOpen the atlas, select a country marker, then switch to the Signal room to compare that landmark’s online reach.
5,793 places · 138 countriesWikidata snapshot · 31 July 2026

An atlas of old stone and present attention

Stone
& Signal

Castles were built to control ground. Their digital afterlives compete for something else: attention. Explore where these landmarks stand, when they began, and which ones travel furthest online.

Landmarks in source5,793All four categories
Founding year listed3,6102183 have no year
Middle listed year1500Median of known years
Interactive set887of 887 curated records
01 / Atlas

Where the source records cluster

Each circle marks one country. Its area grows with the number of landmarks in the complete dataset. Select a circle to open that country’s highest-ranked place.

Country locations sized by all landmark record countsFrance: 351 records — select countryItaly: 350 records — select countryGermany: 349 records — select countryJapan: 297 records — select countrySpain: 230 records — select countryPoland: 217 records — select countryEngland: 182 records — select countryAustria: 182 records — select countryCzech Republic: 182 records — select countryIndia: 156 records — select countrySwitzerland: 141 records — select countryPortugal: 132 records — select countrySweden: 131 records — select countryRussia: 126 records — select countrySlovakia: 126 records — select countryNetherlands: 124 records — select countryChina: 121 records — select countryTurkey: 120 records — select countryIran: 120 records — select countryHungary: 120 records — select countryUkraine: 120 records — select countryGreece: 114 records — select countryIreland: 107 records — select countryUnited States: 98 records — select countryScotland: 96 records — select countryRomania: 93 records — select countryBelgium: 83 records — select countryBrazil: 78 records — select countryWales: 67 records — select countrySouth Korea: 56 records — select countryCroatia: 47 records — select countryDenmark: 46 records — select countryLuxembourg: 42 records — select countrySyria: 37 records — select countryLatvia: 37 records — select countryGeorgia: 37 records — select countryIndonesia: 36 records — select countryAzerbaijan: 35 records — select countryBosnia and Herzegovina: 32 records — select countryGhana: 31 records — select countrySlovenia: 28 records — select countryBelarus: 27 records — select countryEgypt: 26 records — select countryArmenia: 25 records — select countryMorocco: 25 records — select countryLithuania: 24 records — select countrySerbia: 24 records — select countryPakistan: 23 records — select countryCanada: 23 records — select countryIsrael: 22 records — select countryBulgaria: 22 records — select countryAlbania: 22 records — select countrySaudi Arabia: 22 records — select countryTaiwan: 21 records — select countryFinland: 20 records — select countryEstonia: 19 records — select countryNorway: 19 records — select countryJordan: 17 records — select countryMalta: 17 records — select countryChile: 15 records — select countryThailand: 14 records — select countryLebanon: 14 records — select countryPhilippines: 14 records — select countrySri Lanka: 13 records — select countryAlgeria: 12 records — select countryTunisia: 12 records — select countryCuba: 11 records — select countryMexico: 10 records — select countryVietnam: 9 records — select countryIraq: 9 records — select countryNorthern Ireland: 9 records — select countryMozambique: 8 records — select countryOman: 7 records — select countryCyprus: 7 records — select countryUzbekistan: 6 records — select countryBangladesh: 5 records — select countryAfghanistan: 5 records — select countryMalaysia: 5 records — select countryKosovo: 5 records — select countryArgentina: 5 records — select countryCuraçao: 5 records — select countryNamibia: 5 records — select countryLiechtenstein: 4 records — select countryHaiti: 4 records — select countryNorthern Cyprus: 4 records — select countryPeru: 4 records — select countrySouth Africa: 4 records — select countryPalestine: 4 records — select countryPanama: 4 records — select countryColombia: 4 records — select countryLibya: 4 records — select countryJersey: 4 records — select countryKenya: 3 records — select countryMoldova: 3 records — select countryNepal: 3 records — select countryGuatemala: 3 records — select countryAustralia: 3 records — select countryVatican City: 2 records — select countryBenin: 2 records — select countrySan Marino: 2 records — select countryDominican Republic: 2 records — select countryMadagascar: 2 records — select countryBhutan: 2 records — select countrySuriname: 2 records — select countrySingapore: 2 records — select countryIsle of Man: 2 records — select countryBahrain: 2 records — select countryAngola: 2 records — select countryNew Zealand: 2 records — select countryCape Verde: 2 records — select countryYemen: 2 records — select countryMontenegro: 2 records — select countryNorth Korea: 2 records — select countryUruguay: 2 records — select countryEthiopia: 1 records — select countryMonaco: 1 records — select countryBrunei: 1 records — select countryGibraltar: 1 records — select countryCambodia: 1 records — select countryParaguay: 1 records — select countryMyanmar: 1 records — select countryTonga: 1 records — select countryFaroe Islands: 1 records — select countryLaos: 1 records — select countrySão Tomé and Príncipe: 1 records — select countryGuernsey: 1 records — select countryAruba: 1 records — select countryBolivia: 1 records — select countryNicaragua: 1 records — select countryTanzania: 1 records — select countryGuyana: 1 records — select countryUnited Arab Emirates: 1 records — select countryNiger: 1 records — select countrySint Maarten: 1 records — select countryQatar: 1 records — select countrySudan: 1 records — select countryDemocratic Republic of the Congo: 1 records — select countryThe Bahamas: 1 records — select country
This coordinate plot is intentionally schematic: it shows latitude and longitude without national borders. Counts reflect the source, not a complete inventory of every surviving structure.
Discovery shelf

Across all eras

887 matches in the interactive set. Results are ordered by the source’s blended fame rank.

Read this carefully

“Fame” is the source’s rank combining Wikipedia language coverage and recent pageviews. It measures online visibility, not historical value. Founding years may be approximate, and the dataset is a curated collection—not a census of every castle, fortress, palace, or ruin.

This page uses a fixed copy of the TidyTuesday World Castles dataset curated from Castlemap and Wikidata. It is a discovery tool, not a complete register of historic landmarks or a measure of cultural importance.

Why this exists

The question.

Historic landmarks occupy two landscapes at once: a physical place and a modern attention network. Putting location, age, Wikipedia language reach, and pageviews into one explorer can reveal where those landscapes align—and where they do not.

How to begin.

Open the atlas, select a country marker, then switch to the Signal room to compare that landmark’s online reach.

Method and limits

How the project was built.

I downloaded the 5,793-record World Castles snapshot linked by TidyTuesday and calculated country, category, and founding-era summaries from the full file. The interactive landmark set keeps the top 300 fame ranks, the 100 earliest dated records, 100 high-language/low-view records, every seventeenth fame rank, and at least two records per country; duplicates are removed, leaving 887 places. The map uses exact full-dataset country counts but schematic median coordinates. Missing years and pageviews remain missing, approximate years stay labeled, and logarithmic axes keep lower-attention records visible. No images or live requests are used.

What this demonstrates

  • Data analysis
  • Data engineering
  • Visualization
  • Information design
  • Interaction design
  • Editorial storytelling
  • Accessibility
  • Performance

Takeaways

  1. Of 5,793 source records across 138 countries, 3,610 include a founding year. The median known year is 1500; the interface leaves the other 2,183 records in an explicit ‘Year unknown’ group.
  2. The median listed founding year differs by category: 1293.5 for ruins, 1350 for castles, 1667 for fortresses, and 1716 for palaces. These are patterns in the curated source, not a timeline of all surviving structures.
  3. Palaces have a median of 7,610 trailing-year pageviews in the source, compared with 2,586 for fortresses, 1,468 for ruins, and 1,169 for castles. Online visibility is not the same as historical importance.

Sources

TidyTuesday; curated by Georgios Karamanis from Castlemap and Wikidata · Creative Commons CC0 1.0World Castles, Fortresses and Palaces — TidyTuesday 2026-09-01 ↗Wikimedia Foundation · Structured data available under Creative Commons CC0 1.0Wikidata licensing policy ↗