The Most Beautiful Clock Towers in Europe
5 places in 5 countries · updated 6 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful clock towers in Europe are Zytglogge (Switzerland), Clock Tower of Sighișoara (Romania) and St Mark's Clocktower (Italy). The list covers 5 clock towers in 5 countries. The Czech Republic has the most, with 1. Last updated 6 October 2026.
Before anyone carried a watch, a town's time came from its tower. From the 14th century, European cities competed to install mechanical clocks, and the richest added astronomical dials, moving figures and bells struck by automata, turning the hour into a small public show. The towers that hold them became symbols of civic independence.
Prague's Astronomical Clock, installed in 1410, is the oldest astronomical clock still working, and on the hour the Apostles parade in windows above its dials. Bern's Zytglogge, once a city gate, has an astronomical clock built in 1530 with a mechanical play of figures before each hour. The Clock Tower of Sighișoara in Transylvania, the main gate of the walled citadel, shows carved figures representing the days of the week. In Venice, St Mark's Clocktower displays a blue and gold zodiac dial, with two bronze figures striking the bell on its roof. In London, Big Ben, completed in 1859 as part of the rebuilt Palace of Westminster, is the most famous clock tower in the world.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zytglogge | Clock tower | Switzerland | ✓ |
| 2 | Clock Tower of Sighișoara | Clock tower | Romania | |
| 3 | St Mark's Clocktower | Clock tower | Italy | |
| 4 | Prague Astronomical Clock | Clock tower | Czech Republic | |
| 5 | Big Ben | Clock tower | United Kingdom |
01 Zytglogge
Switzerland · 3.8 km from Bern46.948° N 7.448° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Karlheinz Klingbeil · CC BY 4.0 Today's outline, a tower 54.5 m high with a sweeping late-Gothic spire, dates largely from a Baroque remodelling of 1770–1771, and the facades carry large clock faces on both sides. The west face bears Victor Surbek's 1929 fresco "Beginning of Time". The real attraction is on the east side, towards the old town: an astronomical clock in the form of an astrolabe, whose dial shows the hour, the day of the week, the month, the sign of the zodiac and the phase of the moon. Above it a painted frieze shows five classical gods standing for the days and planets. The clockwork that drives it all was forged in place by Kaspar Brunner in 1527–1530.
Did you know? The great hour bell, about 1.27 m across and weighing some 1,400 kg, carries a Latin inscription recording that it was cast in October 1405.
02 Clock Tower of Sighișoara
Turnul cu Ceas din Sighișoara
Romania46.219° N 24.793° E
Image by falco from Pixabay Unlike the town's other towers, each of which belonged to a guild, the Clock Tower was public property. It housed the town council until 1656, the town band played from it on feast days, and its gallery was the fire lookout. The two clock faces, one toward the upper town and one toward the lower, are 2.3 metres across, and beside each is a niche of carved and painted wooden figures. On the citadel side stand Peace with her olive branch, a drummer, blindfolded Justice with her sword and Righteousness with her scales, and above them Day and Night, who once marked the craftsmen's twelve-hour working day.
Did you know? The Baroque roof rises about 34 metres, while the stone and brick tower beneath it measures about 30 metres to the eaves.
03 St Mark's Clocktower
Torre dell'orologio
Italy · 0.5 km from Venice45.435° N 12.339° E
kallerna · CC BY-SA 4.0 Read the facade from the top down. On the roof terrace two huge bronze figures, one old and one young, swing from the waist to strike the hours on a bell cast at the Arsenal in 1497; they are known as the Moors because of the dark patina of the bronze, and were cast in 1494. Below them the winged lion of St Mark stands against a blue field of gold stars; a kneeling statue of Doge Agostino Barbarigo in front of it was removed by the French in 1797. Next comes a gilded Virgin and Child in a small gallery, flanked by two blue panels that show the hour in Roman numerals and the minutes, in steps of five, in Arabic ones.
Did you know? The two Moors were originally gilded and were long described as shepherds or giants; only their darkening bronze earned them their present name.
04 Prague Astronomical Clock
Staroměstský orloj
Czech Republic · 0.2 km from Prague50.087° N 14.421° E
Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay The astronomical dial is essentially a mechanical astrolabe, a model of the sky as seen from Prague. A blue disc stands for the sky above the horizon and the dark bands below for night, with dawn and twilight marked in between. A golden sun travels around a zodiac ring and shows the time three ways at once: ordinary hours in Roman numerals, the unequal "hours" of daylight on curved golden lines, and Old Czech Time on the outer ring, where the count restarts at sunset. The moon moves around the same ring faster and shows its phase through a half-silvered sphere turned slowly by a weight, a gravity-driven mechanism that is unique among clocks of this kind.
Did you know? The Moon's phase sphere holds a 57-tooth gear advanced two teeth a day; it drifts from the real phase by only about one day in five years.
05 Big Ben
United Kingdom · 0.4 km from London51.501° N 0.125° W
Image by pemacallan from Pixabay The tower exists because the old Palace of Westminster burned down almost completely on 16 October 1834. Charles Barry won the resulting design competition — 97 architects entered — with a grand Gothic Revival scheme for the whole rebuilt palace, and his 96-metre clock tower needed detailing his own training hadn't prepared him for, so he brought in Augustus Pugin specifically to handle it. It's Pugin's decorative work — the tracery, the ornament, the clock faces — that gives the tower its unmistakable Perpendicular Gothic silhouette, even though Barry held the overall commission.
Did you know? The first bell, cast in Stockton-on-Tees in 1856, cracked beyond repair during testing; its replacement took 18 hours to haul up to the belfry.
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 clock towers in Europe?
- On our list, Zytglogge (Switzerland) ranks first, followed by Clock Tower of Sighișoara (Romania) and St Mark's Clocktower (Italy).
- Which country has the most clock towers in Europe?
- In our collection, the most come from the Czech Republic (1), Italy (1) and Romania (1).
- Is Big Ben the tower or the bell?
- Strictly, Big Ben is the nickname of the Great Bell inside the tower. The tower itself was renamed Elizabeth Tower in 2012, though the name Big Ben is widely used for both.
- How old is the Prague Astronomical Clock?
- Its oldest part, the astronomical dial, was made in 1410 by the clockmaker Mikuláš of Kadaň and Jan Šindel, which makes it the oldest astronomical clock still in operation.
- How many clock towers are on this list in Europe?
- The list covers 5 clock towers in 5 countries. The Czech Republic has the most, with 1.