Kuressaare Episcopal Castle, located on Saaremaa island in western Estonia, is one of the Baltic's best-preserved 14th-century fortresses. Built as a stronghold of the Bishop of Saare-Lääne, it remained one of the Bishopric's most important seats until the Livonian War. The castle subsequently came under Danish, Swedish, and Russian rule, with each power leaving architectural marks on the fortress. Today, the castle complex functions as a museum with extensive permanent exhibitions on Saaremaa's history, plus temporary displays. The surrounding fortress walls showcase a unique open-air museum of military architecture spanning the 14th to 19th centuries, with the medieval convent building standing as the only surviving fortified medieval structure of its kind in the Baltic States.
