Rize Castle ( tr, Rize Kalesi) is a partly-ruined medieval castle located in

Rize Rize (Greek: ρίζα, Laz: რიზინი, Georgian: რიზე, , Ottoman Turkish: ريزه) is the capital city of Rize Province in the eastern part of the Black Sea Region of Turkey. Rize is a typically Turkish provincial capital w ...

, northeastern Turkey. Rize Castle is situated on a hill southwest of the city center, and offers a panoramic view of the city. The castle consists of a

citadel A citadel is the core fortified area of a town or city. It may be a castle, fortress, or fortified center. The term is a diminutive of "city", meaning "little city", because it is a smaller part of the city of which it is the defensive core. I ...

and the lower castle. It is believed that the citadel was built during the reign of

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...

Justinian I Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565. His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renova ...

(r. 527–565), and the lower castle dates back to the 13th century. It covers an area of . The fortification's walls, built in ashlar and mortar, are high and thick. Between the

cylinder A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infin ...

-formed bastions, there are overhung support towers in various forms such as square, rectangular and round. Today, some of the ruined castle walls are buried under reinforced concrete buildings and streets. The castle walls in the southern part were restored in 1989. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism launched a project for the restoration of Rize Castle in 2011.

References

Buildings and structures in Rize Province Byzantine fortifications in Turkey Tourist attractions in Rize Province Buildings of Justinian I Buildings and structures completed in the 13th century {{Turkey-castle-stub