Where Is Snow White's Castle Located?

King Stefan and Cinderella's castles are easy enough to find in Disney's themed properties worldwide. But which Disney park has Snow White's castle? 

It's going to surprise you that the Disneylands worldwide don't even have a physical castle modeled after the one in The Movie That Started It All. Although an Orange County board member referred to the OG palace in Disneyland Park Anaheim as "Snow White's castle" in 2021, the castle as it appears in 1938's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves does not have a full recreation so far. 

The closest the Disney resorts and parks have to a Snow White castle are interior depictions thereof in interactive attractions and dark rides. Inside the Enchanted Storybook Castle in Shanghai Disneyland, you can take a walkthrough attraction, Once Upon A Time Adventure, where you can step up a spiral staircase to a dramatic columned chamber where the Magic Mirror lives. It bears remembering that the towering Shanghai Storybook castle itself does not imitate any Disney royal home in particular but is rather a pastiche of multiple onscreen castles. 

The fictional castle interiors also inspired Snow White's Scary Adventures ride, transferred in 2021 from Magic Kingdom to its new home in Fantasyland, both in Anaheim Disneyland. Now rebranded as Snow White's Enchanted Wish, the ride shows the castle less like the Evil Queen's than Snow White's property, its terrifying elements toned down or removed entirely for a wider audience. (Versions of Snow White's Enchanted Wish can be found in Disneyland Paris and Tokyo Disneyland.)

As Walt Disney historians would say, the castle shown on the Snow White movie is a recreation of the Alcázar de Segovia in Spain, once home to the kings and queens of Castile. 

Alcázar de Segovia in Spain (above) inspired the castle on Walt Disney's 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves' (below). Photo taken with Canon EOS 650D by Rafa Esteve 

Like the opening shot of the film, Alcázar de Segovia stands majestically on a crag. After the royals moved to Madrid in the 17th century, it assumed the function of a state prison—Queen Grimhilde would have probably enjoyed dehydrating her jailbirds here. In 1762, it became an artillery school, something the huntsman would have found to be familiar territory, too.   

Isabella I was enthroned as queen in this castle. Although she is fondly remembered for having funded the expedition of Christopher Columbus, which led to the discovery of North America, she is also known for having started one of the bloodiest periods in history: the mass expulsion and execution of Jews and Muslims from Spain in 1492. She did those and more even though the castle had been a Moorish fortress in 1120, long before it became home for the Catholic royals. Isabella also set off a little event called the Inquisition in Spain.

If that's not the Evil Queen's castle, then we don't know where is.