Spis Castle occupies a limestone hilltop above the town of Spisske Podhradie in eastern Slovakia, with construction beginning in the twelfth century on the site of an earlier fortified settlement, and it is counted among the largest castle complexes in Central Europe by the area its ruins enclose. Successive noble families expanded the castle over the following centuries, adding a Romanesque core, Gothic residential wings and later Renaissance fortifications, until a fire in 1780 left the complex abandoned and gradually ruined. The castle and its surrounding cultural landscape, including the nearby town and the Spissky Chapter religious settlement, were inscribed together as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993. Extensive stabilization and partial reconstruction work carried out since the late twentieth century has made large sections of the ruins accessible to visitors today.
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