Over One Million Visit "Cinderella Castle" Each Year... Designated as UNESCO World Heritage Site After 69.4 Billion Won Investment

Germany's Most Famous Tourist Attraction
Visited by Over One Million Tourists Annually

Neuschwanstein Castle, the most famous tourist attraction in Germany, has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

According to German local media on July 14 (local time), the UNESCO World Heritage Committee included Neuschwanstein Castle, Linderhof Palace, Schachen Castle, and Herrenchiemsee Palace in Bavaria, Germany, on the World Heritage List during its 47th session held in Paris, France, on July 12.

Neuschwanstein Castle, known as Cinderella Castle. Getty Images.

According to reports, all the castles added to the World Heritage List this time were built during the Kingdom of Bavaria in the late 19th century by King Ludwig II (1845?1886).

Neuschwanstein Castle, in particular, became famous because a similar castle appears in the Disney animated film "Cinderella." Disney constructed a building resembling this castle in Disneyland theme parks and used its image in the openings of other animated films. For this reason, Neuschwanstein Castle is also known as "Cinderella Castle."

More than one million tourists visit the castle each year to see the inspiration for the castle featured in Disney films. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, about 1.4 million people visited annually. In recent years, the Bavarian state government, which owns the building, has limited the number of visitors, resulting in about 1.1 million visitors last year.

Maria Boehmer, Chair of the German UNESCO Commission, described all the castles as masterpieces. She said, "They demonstrate not only artistic imagination but also the eccentricity of a fairy tale king." The German side requested that the castles be listed with the description "dreams built in stone," but this was not accepted.

The Bavarian state government invested 43 million euros (approximately 69.4 billion won) in restoring the facilities and worked hard for the World Heritage designation. There is a theory that Ludwig II lived alone in the castle and had planned to have it demolished after his death. The daily newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) commented, "In the end, no one listened to him, and the legacy of Bavaria's most famous king has become the property of the world."