The Most Beautiful Ancient Sacred Places in the World
18 places in 9 countries · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful ancient sacred places in the world are Castel Sant'Angelo (Italy), Parthenon (Greece) and Terracotta Army (People's Republic of China). The list covers 18 ancient sacred places in 9 countries. Italy has the most, with 5. Last updated 14 October 2026.
An ancient sacred place carries more than its own religion. Many temples and tombs from Egypt, Greece, Rome, Armenia and China outlived the gods they were built for and were reused, rededicated or rediscovered by later ages, so a single site can hold several thousand years of belief. What they share is the effort of societies with simple tools to make something permanent for the dead and the divine.
The oldest here is Ġgantija on Gozo, a megalithic temple of the fourth millennium BC, older than the pyramids. In Egypt, the Karnak complex at Thebes grew over some two thousand years around the temple of Amun, Luxor Temple stands at the other end of an avenue of sphinxes, and the Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa in Alexandria blend Egyptian gods with Roman dress. On the Acropolis, the Parthenon was built for Athena in the fifth century BC, and near Xi'an the Terracotta Army of thousands of individually modelled soldiers guards the tomb of China's First Emperor.
Rome adds layers. Castel Sant'Angelo began as Hadrian's mausoleum and became a papal fortress, and Santa Maria Maggiore keeps fifth-century mosaics along its nave. Armenia, the first state to adopt Christianity, has Etchmiadzin Cathedral from the early fourth century and, at Garni, a Greco-Roman colonnaded temple on a gorge edge. In Jerusalem, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was first built under Constantine over the site venerated as Christ's tomb.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Castel Sant'Angelo | Castle | Italy | |
| 2 | Parthenon | Ruins | Greece | ✓ |
| 3 | Terracotta Army | Archaeological site | People's Republic of China | ✓ |
| 4 | Church of the Holy Sepulchre | Cathedral | Israel | |
| 5 | Ġgantija | Archaeological site | Malta | ✓ |
| 6 | Luxor Temple | Archaeological site | Egypt | ✓ |
| 7 | Etchmiadzin Cathedral | Cathedral | Armenia | ✓ |
| 8 | Karnak Temple Complex | Archaeological site | Egypt | ✓ |
| 9 | Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa | Catacombs | Egypt | |
| 10 | Garni Temple | Temple | Armenia | |
| 11 | Sevanavank | Monastery | Armenia | |
| 12 | Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore | Church building | Italy | ✓ |
| 13 | Pantheon, Rome | Archaeological site | Italy | |
| 14 | Necropolis of stecci at Radimlja, the historic site | Necropolis | Bosnia and Herzegovina | ✓ |
| 15 | Sanctuary of Oropa | Pilgrimage site | Italy | |
| 16 | Catacombs of San Gennaro | Catacombs | Italy | |
| 17 | Temple of Apollo Epicurius in Bassae | Ruins | Greece | ✓ |
| 18 | Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo | Church building | Bulgaria | ✓ |
01 Castel Sant'Angelo
Italy · 1.4 km from Rome41.903° N 12.466° E
Image by rainhard2 from Pixabay Hadrian started building his own tomb in 123 CE and didn't live to see it finished — it was completed in 139 under his successor Antoninus Pius, a cylindrical drum of a monument meant to hold the ashes of an emperor and his family for eternity. Eternity lasted about three centuries as a mausoleum.
Did you know? The current bronze angel by Peter Anton von Verschaffelt replaced a 1536 marble Saint Michael by Raffaello da Montelupo in 1753.
02 Parthenon
Παρθενώνας
Greece · 1.6 km from Athens37.972° N 23.727° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by nonbirinonko from Pixabay The Parthenon looks perfectly straight only because almost nothing about it actually is.
Did you know? On 26 September 1687 a Venetian mortar round hit gunpowder stored inside by the Ottoman garrison, and the blast killed about 300 people.
03 Terracotta Army
People's Republic of China · 24.5 km from Weinan34.385° N 109.273° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by artemtation from Pixabay The farmer who found the Terracotta Army wasn't looking for it. In March 1974, Yang Zhifa, his five brothers and a neighbor were digging a well during a drought, hoping only for water, when at about three metres down they hit a layer of charcoal and reddened soil, and past four metres one of them pulled up a life-sized pottery head.
Did you know? Legs were built much like terracotta drainage pipes, and heads, arms and torsos were made separately before assembly.
04 Church of the Holy Sepulchre
Israel · 2.2 km from Jerusalem31.778° N 35.230° E
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jlascar/ · CC BY 2.0 The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is not one building but a knot of them, grown over seventeen centuries on the spot that Christian tradition identifies as both Golgotha, the hill of the crucifixion, and the rock-cut tomb from which Jesus rose.
Did you know? When the tomb was opened in 2016, mortar from just above the burial bed was dated to the mid-fourth century, consistent with the age of Constantine.
05 Ġgantija
Malta · 27.5 km from Valletta36.047° N 14.269° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Vitold Muratov · CC BY-SA 4.0 Ġgantija stands on the edge of the Xagħra plateau on Gozo, the second island of the Maltese archipelago, and it is the oldest of the megalithic temples that make up the Maltese World Heritage listing. Its two temples were raised around 3600 BC, which puts them centuries ahead of the Egyptian pyramids.
Did you know? Ġgantija is regarded as the second-oldest surviving human-built religious structure in the world, younger only than Göbekli Tepe in Turkey.
06 Luxor Temple
Egypt · 1.1 km from Luxor25.700° N 32.639° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by DEZALB from Pixabay Luxor Temple rises on the east bank of the Nile in the middle of modern Luxor, ancient Thebes, and it is the one great temple of Egypt that sits inside a living town. The ancient Egyptians called it ipet resyt, the southern sanctuary.
Did you know? The temple was built of Nubian sandstone quarried at Gebel el-Silsila, upriver from Luxor.
07 Etchmiadzin Cathedral
Armenia · 16.6 km from Ashtarak40.162° N 44.291° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Marcin Konsek · CC BY-SA 4.0 Etchmiadzin is the mother church of the Armenian Apostolic Church and has a strong claim to being the oldest cathedral in the world. Armenian tradition places its founding between 301 and 303, just after King Tiridates III made Armenia the first state to adopt Christianity.
Did you know? The bell tower once held a bell inscribed with a Tibetan Buddhist mantra, noted by travellers throughout the nineteenth century; it vanished after its removal in the late 1930s.
08 Karnak Temple Complex
Egypt · 2.2 km from Luxor25.718° N 32.658° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by nadkol19 from Pixabay The Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak is large enough that Notre-Dame Cathedral would fit inside its footprint, held up by 134 sandstone columns, with the twelve tallest running down the central nave at about 21 metres high and roughly 10 metres around — big enough that a handful of people can link arms around the base of just one.
Did you know? The obelisk now in front of Rome's Lateran Palace began at Karnak around 1400 BC and was shipped to Rome by Emperor Constantius II in 357 AD.
09 Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa
Egypt · 4.5 km from Alexandria31.187° N 29.905° E
Asiatologist · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa are the largest Roman-era burial complex in Egypt and one of the strangest: a tomb where Egyptian gods wear Roman armour. Cut into the bedrock of Alexandria in the second century AD, they lay forgotten until 1900, when, as the story goes, a donkey fell through the ground into the access shaft.
Did you know? The tombs stayed in use for about two centuries, from the 2nd to the 4th century AD, before they were forgotten.
10 Garni Temple
Armenia · 20.1 km from Yerevan40.112° N 44.729° E
Image by Makalu from Pixabay Garni is the one classical colonnaded building that survives anywhere in Armenia — and indeed in the whole territory of the former Soviet Union. It stands on the edge of a triangular promontory at about 1,400 m, where the ground drops sheer into the gorge of the Azat River, with the Gegham mountains rising behind. 7 m high. Its compact, harmonious proportions have invited comparison with the Maison Carrée at Nîmes.
Did you know? In the wars of Shah Abbas in the early 1600s, iron clamps and lead were prised out of the temple to cast bullets, weakening it before the 1679 earthquake.
11 Sevanavank
Armenia · 24.8 km from Gavar40.564° N 45.011° E
Image by Taken from Pixabay Sevanavank stands on a narrow rocky headland above Lake Sevan, the great mountain lake of Armenia lying at about 1,900 metres. Two small stone churches with octagonal drums and conical roofs crown the ridge, with the wide blue water and the mountains of the far shore behind them — one of the best-known views in the country.
Did you know? The monastery is also known as Mariamashen, meaning built by Mariam, after its royal founder.
12 Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore
Italy · 1.4 km from Rome41.898° N 12.499° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
L'Ospite Inatteso · CC BY-SA 4.0 Santa Maria Maggiore, the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, stands on the summit of the Esquiline Hill and is one of Rome's four major papal basilicas. Unlike most great Roman churches, it has kept the bones of its original Early Christian building.
Did you know? Pope Francis was the first pope buried outside the Vatican since Leo XIII in 1903, and the first in this basilica since Clement IX in 1669.
13 Pantheon, Rome
Pantheon
Italy · 0.4 km from Rome41.899° N 12.477° E
Image by falcon505 from Pixabay The Pantheon is the best-preserved great building of ancient Rome, and its interior is one of the most perfect spaces ever built. The temple first raised by Marcus Agrippa under Augustus burned down; the building that stands today was reconstructed under the emperor Hadrian and completed around AD 126.
Did you know? Two small bell towers added in the 17th century were mocked by Romans as ass's ears and finally taken down in 1883.
14 Necropolis of stecci at Radimlja, the historic site
Nekropola Radimlja
Bosnia and Herzegovina · 29.9 km from Mostar43.093° N 17.923° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Joanne Goldby from Birmingham, UK · CC BY-SA 2.0 Stećci — massive carved medieval tombstones — are found only in the western Balkans, and Radimlja, in the Vidovo field just outside Stolac in Herzegovina, is the most celebrated site where they can be seen. In 2016 it was included in the World Heritage listing of stećci cemeteries shared by Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia.
Did you know? The core of the cemetery is three large chests made at the end of the 14th century, two of them richly carved in low relief.
More about Necropolis of stecci at Radimlja, the historic site →
15 Sanctuary of Oropa
Santuario di Oropa
Italy45.628° N 7.979° E
Alfiere33 · CC BY-SA 4.0 High in a natural amphitheatre of the Biellese Alps, at roughly 1,160 metres, the Sanctuary of Oropa is less a single church than a small mountain town built for the Virgin. Two basilicas, arcaded courtyards, former royal apartments and long pilgrim wings climb the slope in stages, and the whole ensemble is crowned by a great domed church that can be seen from the plain around Biella.
Did you know? The Black Madonna of Oropa is a wooden statue dated by scholars to around 1300 and attributed to a sculptor from the Aosta Valley.
16 Catacombs of San Gennaro
Catacombe di San Gennaro
Italy · 2.5 km from Naples40.864° N 14.248° E
Dominik Matus · CC BY-SA 4.0 Beneath the slope that climbs from the Sanità district to Capodimonte in northern Naples lies the largest Christian catacomb complex in southern Italy. Unlike the narrow galleries of Rome, the Catacombs of San Gennaro were cut into soft tuff on two levels with broad, high passages, and even whole churches were carved out of the rock.
Did you know? The lower level is the oldest, dating to the 3rd or 4th century, and may have begun as a pre-Christian cemetery.
17 Temple of Apollo Epicurius in Bassae
Ναός Επικούριου Απόλλωνα
Greece37.430° N 21.900° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Jean Housen · CC BY-SA 4.0 On a bare limestone shoulder of Mount Kotilion, more than 1,100 metres up in the wild hills where ancient Arcadia met Messenia, stands one of the best-preserved temples of classical Greece. Its name, Bassai, means roughly a little vale among the rocks, and the setting is exactly that: grey stone, oak scrub and a long view over ridges towards the sea.
Did you know? Bassae became the first Greek site on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1986.
18 Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo
Ивановски скални църкви
Bulgaria · 17.6 km from Ruse43.696° N 25.988° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Hans A. Rosbach · CC BY-SA 3.0 South of Ruse, the river Rusenski Lom has cut a winding canyon into the limestone plateau, and in its cliffs, some 32 metres above the water, medieval monks hollowed out churches, chapels and cells.
Did you know? Ivanovo is one of hundreds of rock churches, hermitages and cells that made the Rusenski Lom valley a Bulgarian spiritual centre from the 10th to the 14th century.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful ancient sacred places in the world?
- On our list, Castel Sant'Angelo (Italy) ranks first, followed by Parthenon (Greece) and Terracotta Army (People's Republic of China).
- Which country has the most ancient sacred places in the world?
- In our collection, the most come from Italy (5), Armenia (3) and Egypt (3).
- Is Ġgantija older than the pyramids?
- Yes. The Ġgantija temples on Gozo date to around 3600–3200 BC, several centuries before the Egyptian pyramids, and are among the oldest free-standing structures known.
- Why was the Terracotta Army made?
- The terracotta soldiers, horses and chariots were buried near the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a unified China, to serve him in the afterlife. Farmers digging a well found them in 1974.
- What was Castel Sant'Angelo originally?
- It was built in the second century as the mausoleum of the Roman emperor Hadrian and his family, and later became a fortress and refuge for the popes.
- How many ancient sacred places are on this list in the world?
- The list covers 18 ancient sacred places in 9 countries. Italy has the most, with 5.