Wernigerode Castle in Wernigerode, Saxony-Anhalt, took its current form at the end of the 19th century and became a historic building in North Germany. Today it houses a much-visited museum and a branch of the Saxony-Anhalt Cultural Foundation.
The first documented mention of an count of Wernigerode is from 1121, it is also the first mention of the settlement of Wernigerode, whose beginnings can be dated approximately a century earlier. Wernigerode's first castle was built between 1110 and 1120 on the existing settlement of Wernigerode. Its first documentary mention as a castle, "Castrum Wernigerode", dates from 1213. At that time it was considered one of the strongest castles in the Harz region. Its builder was Count Adalbert, first mentioned in 1121 as "Comes de Wernigerothe" in a document by Bishop Reinhard von Blankenburg of Halberstadt.
