Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Portal:Thuringia/Article of the month/January

The Imperial Castle of Kyffhausen (Reichsburg Kyffhausen) is a medieval castle ruin, situated in the Kyffhäuser hills in Thuringia, close to its border with Saxony-Anhalt. Probably founded about 1000, it superseded the nearby imperial palace (Kaiserpfalz) of Tilleda under the rule of the Hohenstaufen emperors during the 12th and 13th centuries.

The ruins of the castle are located on the northeastern rim of the range on a hill, the Kyffhäuserburgberg (439.7 m), an approximately 800-metre-long eastern spur. The castle is in the parish of Steinthaleben, about 3 kilometres northeast of the village of Rathsfeld, in the Thuringian municipality of Kyffhäuserland, near the town of Bad Frankenhausen in Kyffhäuserkreis. To the north is the plain of Goldene Aue ("Golden Water Meadows", c. ).

Together with the Kyffhäuser Monument, erected on the castle grounds between 1890 and 1896, it is today a popular tourist destination.

↪ more