Kaposvár

Kaposvár takes its name from the castle built on an island-like rise amid the floodplain of the Kapos River. The stronghold was standing by 1387 and was enlarged with walls, a palace wing and ditches. As Ottoman attacks threatened the district, timber palisades strengthened its outer defences, with ditches and woven walls reinforced by earth.

After a bloody siege in September 1555, the castle fell to the Ottomans. They maintained and renewed its wooden defences during more than a century of Ottoman rule. Imperial troops under Louis of Baden recovered Kaposvár in 1686, and the settlement grew again after the long wars. In 1749 it became the seat of Somogy county, giving the former fortress town an administrative role in the wider surrounding countryside.