Difference Between Castle and Palace

Castle vs Palace

Difference between castle and palace is not hard to understand once you find out why each one was built in the first place. Castle is built to prove supremacy, whereas a palace is built to prove royalty. A castle is built for protection or for defense purposes while a palace is built to showcase wealth and power. Based on this purpose of building a castle and a palace, there are some other differences between the two architectural creations. These differences can be categorized as structure, places found and their history. This article will discuss all these features, explaining them so that you can differentiate a castle from a palace without a problem.

What is a Castle?

Castles are built with the primary motive of protection. Safety is the purpose for which a castle is generally built. Decoration is secondary when it comes to building a castle. Hence, a castle is primarily a fortification. As the primary motive of building a castle is protection, you will see that castles are often built using stones and bricks. Castles have thick walls, battlements (according to the Oxford dictionary: ‘a parapet at the top of a wall, especially of a fort or castle, that has regularly spaced squared openings for shooting through’), towers (according to the Oxford dictionary: ‘a tall narrow building, either free-standing or forming part of a building such as a church or castle’ ) and moats (according to the Oxford dictionary: ‘a deep, wide ditch surrounding a castle, fort, or town, typically filled with water and intended as a defence against attack’). With this information, now you can imagine how a castle is like. Castles can turn into places of residence as well, but the main purport in building them is defense. A building or a series of strong and well-built buildings to ensure safety of the king and the other persons concerned with the king is called a castle. In fact, it is built to offer protection against the attack of the enemies and political sieges. According to history, castles were first constructed in the ninth century. Castles are found mostly in Europe and Middle East.

Castle is also another name for the chess piece known as rook.

What is a Palace?

A palace is built with an intention of constructing spacious halls and rooms primarily meant for comfort. Decoration is the primary intent when it comes to building a palace. The palace at Stockholm, Sweden and the palace at Mysore in India are the two best examples of palaces that are endowed with the element of decoration. As a matter of fact, both have become favorite spots of tourist destinations.

While castles are built in the sense of defense, palaces are not built with the sense of defense. A palace is just nothing more than a beautiful place to live. A palace is, on the other hand, a building that provides leisure and diversion to the king and the other people around him. A well-built palace is endowed with comfortable and lovely rooms and halls meant for the stay of the queens, various ministers, and other people concerned with the government.

As palaces showcase wealth and power, they are most likely to be built using marble or some material with that much worth. Also, palaces have all the newly found (at the time of construction) and mostly appreciated architectural elements in them. Palaces have been around longer than castles. Also, palaces are found all around the world.

What is the difference between Castle and Palace?

• Primary motive of building a castle is the protection, but that of palace is showcase the wealth and power.

• There are differences in the structure too. Castles are built with brick and stones and have thick walls, battlements, towers and moats; Palaces are built with materials such as marble and have the latest architectural designs.

• Considerng the history of both, castle and palace, castles were first constructed in the ninth century, but the history of palaces is not clear. It is not clear when palaces originated, but have been around longer than castles.

• Places found: Castles are only found in Europe and Middle East while palaces are found all around the world.

• Castle is also another name for the chess piece known as rook.

In short, it can be said that a castle is built to prove supremacy, whereas a palace is built to prove royalty. Lot of money was usually spent in the construction of a palace.

Images Courtesy: Castle via Pixabay