Electoral castle Boppard, Medieval castle in Boppard, Germany

The Electoral Castle Boppard, also called Alte Burg, is a lowland moated castle on the Rhine in Boppard's old town. Its core is a residential tower (former bergfried) with four corner turrets and oriel windows, expanded to four storeys in the late 14th century. A twelve-metre-wide, six-metre-deep moat once cut it off from the town. The four-wing complex was completed in the 17th century.

Building research from 2003 to 2005 showed that King Richard of Cornwall probably had the bergfried built around 1265, during the Interregnum, in the free city of Boppard. After Boppard was pledged to Archbishop Balduin of Luxembourg, he expanded it into a toll castle; after a short siege in 1327 he subdued the city and integrated the castle into the town walls. The four-wing layout took shape up to the 17th century under Electors Karl Kaspar von der Leyen and Johann Hugo von Orsbeck.

The castle chapel holds painted coats of arms from the second half of the 14th century, added when the tower was raised to four storeys under Kuno or Werner von Falkenstein. They record the archbishops who expanded the toll castle, and visitors can still see them inside the chapel.

The building now houses the Museum Boppard, which covers local history and includes a furniture collection. Plan enough time to see both the fortress walls and the museum rooms inside.

Most Rhine castles were built on hilltops to command the surrounding land, but this one sits at ground level in the town itself. That choice shows it was meant to defend the town directly, not to overlook it from above.