Timișoara Fortress

Timișoara Fortress (Latin: Castrum Temesiensis, Castrum Temesvariensis, Hungarian: Temesvári vár, Turkish: Temeşvar Kalesi, German: Festung Temeswar, Romanian: Cetatea Timișoara) is a historical fortress in western Romania around which the town of Timișoara was built. It is presumed that there was an earlier earthworks fortification built by the Avars, but the first written record is from the 13th century.

At the beginning of the 14th century Charles I of Hungary built the first stone fortification, the Angevin fortress. In 1443 John Hunyadi restored the castle and the surrounding walls, which had been destroyed by an earthquake. The fortress was captured in 1552 by the Ottoman Turks, who held it till 1716 when it was taken by the Habsburgs.

The Habsburgs reconstructed it, making it much bigger in the style of Blaise Francois Pagan, a precursor of the Vauban system. The Habsburg fortress was besieged only once, during the Hungarian Revolution in 1849. The increased effectiveness of artillery with explosive shells at the end of the 19th century rendered the walls ineffective.

As the walls and the area around them (the non ædificandi area) hindered the development of the town, the walls were demolished and the ditches were filled in.