The Most Beautiful Buildings in Africa
5 places in 5 countries · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful buildings in Africa are Bardo National Museum (Tunisia), Ben Youssef Madrasa (Morocco) and Grand Egyptian Museum (Egypt). The list covers 5 buildings in 5 countries. Egypt has the most, with 1. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Africa's finest buildings often carry more than one life. Royal palaces have become museums, a colonial-era grain silo has become a gallery, and old Islamic schools preserve the craft of tile, plaster and cedar that still lives in North African workshops. Alongside them, new institutions are being built to hold some of the oldest collections on Earth.
The Bardo National Museum in Tunis occupies a former palace of the beys and holds one of the world's greatest collections of Roman mosaics. The Ben Youssef Madrasa in Marrakesh surrounds a courtyard pool with zellige tilework, carved stucco and cedar. The Grand Egyptian Museum, built within sight of the Giza pyramids, gathers the treasures of Tutankhamun under one roof. In Cape Town, the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa is carved out of the tubes of an old grain silo, and the Maputo Central Railway Station in Mozambique crowns its pale facade with a metal dome.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bardo National Museum | Museum | Tunisia | |
| 2 | Ben Youssef Madrasa | Museum | Morocco | |
| 3 | Grand Egyptian Museum | Museum | Egypt | |
| 4 | Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa | Museum | South Africa | |
| 5 | Maputo Central Railway Station | Railway station | Mozambique |
01 Bardo National Museum
Tunisia · 4.1 km from Tunis36.809° N 10.134° E
Image by DEZALB from Pixabay The idea of a national museum was first raised in the 1860s by Muhammad Khaznadar, son of the Tunisian prime minister, and the museum opened on 7 May 1888 in an old palace of the beylical court at Le Bardo, on the western edge of Tunis. It was first named the Alaoui Museum after the reigning bey, Ali III, and took its present name after Tunisian independence.
Did you know? Isotope analysis of lead ingots aboard the Mahdia ship traced the metal to the Sierra de Cartagena in Spain.
02 Ben Youssef Madrasa
Morocco · 1.5 km from Marrakesh31.632° N 7.986° W
Lundeux · CC BY-SA 2.5 The plan is almost square, about 40 by 43 metres, and everything turns inward to the central courtyard. A long rectangular pool runs down the middle, doubling the arcades in its still water.
Did you know? Visitors enter through a single street door under a muqarnas vault, then a narrow corridor, before the courtyard suddenly opens up.
03 Grand Egyptian Museum
Egypt · 7 km from Giza29.994° N 31.120° E
Holger Uwe Schmitt · CC BY-SA 4.0 The building came out of one of the largest architectural competitions ever held, with 1,557 entries from 82 countries. It was won in 2003 by the Irish practice Heneghan Peng, whose design is a chamfered triangle faced with translucent alabaster, set behind a plaza planted with date palms. The exhibition design is by the German studio Atelier Brückner.
Did you know? The design competition was the second-largest architectural competition ever held, won by Róisín Heneghan and Shih-Fu Peng, who received a prize of 250,000 US dollars.
04 Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa
South Africa · 1.4 km from Cape Town33.908° S 18.423° E
Matti Blume · CC BY-SA 4.0 The silo, 57 metres tall, was built between 1921 and 1924 and once stored and graded maize from across South Africa. When the port moved on, the V&A Waterfront partnered with the German businessman and collector Jochen Zeitz to turn it into a public, non-profit museum, with Zeitz lending his collection for his lifetime. London's Heatherwick Studio, led by Thomas Heatherwick, began the conversion in 2014.
Did you know? About 73 percent of the original silo bins were removed to make room for the atrium and galleries, along with half of the old elevator building.
05 Maputo Central Railway Station
Estação do Caminho de Ferro de Maputo
Mozambique · 3 km from Maputo25.971° S 32.564° E
Claus Wonnemann · CC BY-SA 4.0 The dome is the station's signature, and the subject of a persistent myth: it is routinely credited to Gustave Eiffel, but it was designed by José Ferreira da Costa and made by Evans & Plows, a firm from Johannesburg. With the First World War under way, the metalwork was fabricated in South Africa rather than in England as first intended.
Did you know? The building's main contractor was Buccellato e Irmão, the family firm of Pietro Buffa Buccellato, who also enriched the façade.
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 buildings in Africa?
- On our list, Bardo National Museum (Tunisia) ranks first, followed by Ben Youssef Madrasa (Morocco) and Grand Egyptian Museum (Egypt).
- Which country has the most buildings in Africa?
- In our collection, the most come from Egypt (1), Morocco (1) and Mozambique (1).
- Did Gustave Eiffel design Maputo railway station?
- No. Its dome is often credited to Eiffel, but the station was planned by Portuguese architects including Mário Veiga, and the dome was designed by José Ferreira da Costa. The building was completed in 1916.
- What was the Zeitz MOCAA building before it became a museum?
- It was a grain silo complex on the Cape Town waterfront. The architect Thomas Heatherwick cut its interior into a cathedral-like atrium, and the museum opened in 2017.
- What is the Bardo Museum known for?
- It holds one of the largest collections of Roman mosaics in the world, recovered from ancient cities across Tunisia.
- How many buildings are on this list in Africa?
- The list covers 5 buildings in 5 countries. Egypt has the most, with 1.