Durrës Castle, Medieval fortress in Durrës, Albania

Durrës Castle is the walled old city of Durrës, Albania. Its late 5th-century walls, built under Emperor Anastasius I, originally ran about 1,100 metres on the longest side; today roughly a third of their length survives, standing nearly 4.6 metres high, with three fortified entrances and several towers.

The Byzantine emperor Anastasius I, a native of Durrës, built the city walls in the late 5th century, making Durrës one of the most fortified cities on the Adriatic. The walls were devastated by an earthquake in 1273 and extensively repaired. The Venetians, who took the city in 1392, added guard towers, and the Ottomans reinforced the walls after 1501. In 1499 the Venetian administrator reported too few men to defend the many walls, and a sultan's decree ordered the original walls reduced to a third.

The fortress walls display architectural styles from Byzantine, Venetian, and Ottoman periods, each leaving traces from the civilizations that controlled this strategic port. Walking around the ruins, you can observe how different building techniques were layered on top of each other over time.

The surviving walls stand about 4.6 metres high and cover roughly one-third of the original circuit, with three tower entrances still open. The Ottoman wall cut across the city at the 59-metre level, leaving the acropolis outside. A second, smaller castle lies 7 km north at Porto Romano.

The fortress became a defensive position in 1939 when local inhabitants mounted resistance against Italian forces until armored units broke through the port. This moment is embedded in local memory and shows how this location retained military relevance across centuries.