The Most Beautiful Natural Arches in the World

27 places in 18 countries · updated 14 October 2026

1. 01 Delicate Arch

   United States · 19.4 km from Moab38.744° N 109.499° W

   

   Delicate Arch is a free-standing sandstone arch about 16 metres (52 feet) high, standing alone on the rim of a slickrock bowl in Arches National Park in eastern Utah. It is the most recognized landmark of the park and of the state: it appears on Utah licence plates and on the stamp issued for the centenary of Utah's statehood. What makes it unforgettable is its setting. There is no canyon wall behind it, only open air, the bowl dropping away below, and the desert stretching to the horizon.

   Did you know? The Olympic torch relay for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics passed beneath the arch.

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2. 02 Hvítserkur

   Iceland65.606° N 20.635° W

   

   Hvítserkur is a 15-metre basalt sea stack standing in the shallows off the eastern shore of the Vatnsnes peninsula in north-west Iceland. Seen from the shore it looks uncannily like a beast bending to drink — two arches pierce its base, so that it seems to stand on legs with its head lowered to the water, and people have compared it to a dragon or a rhinoceros. The name means "white shirt", after the pale coat of droppings that nesting seabirds, gulls and fulmars among them, leave on its seaward face in summer, while the back of the rock remains dark basalt.

   Did you know? Although the stack stands about 15 metres tall and nearly as wide, it is only one to two metres thick, an eroded volcanic dyke left standing on its edge.

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3. 03 Landscape Arch

   United States · 24.6 km from Moab38.791° N 109.607° W

   

   Landscape Arch is a ribbon of sandstone so thin that it seems impossible it is still standing. It spans the air in the Devils Garden area at the northern end of Arches National Park, and it is one of the longest natural arches on Earth: a 2004 survey measured the opening at about 88 metres, with the arch rising some 24 metres above the ground. The Natural Arch and Bridge Society ranks it fifth in the world, behind four arches in China, and just ahead of Kolob Arch in Zion. The National Park Service gives its span as 306 feet — about 93 metres — which shows how hard such a slender form is to measure.

   Did you know? On 5 June 1995 visitors heard a boom like a dynamite blast as a slab about 13 metres long broke from the arch's thinnest section.

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4. 04 Durdle Door

   United Kingdom · 29.2 km from Bournemouth50.621° N 2.277° W

   

   Durdle Door is a natural arch of Portland limestone standing in the sea off the Dorset coast near Lulworth, one of the best-known landmarks of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. The arch forms the end of a small headland, the last remnant of a band of hard limestone that once ran parallel to the shore; the waves broke through it, then scoured out the softer rocks behind, leaving a small bay and beach on either side of the headland.

   Did you know? The arch is carved from Portland limestone laid down in a warm shallow sea roughly 140 to 150 million years ago, in the late Jurassic.

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5. 05 Es Pontàs

   Spain39.326° N 3.145° E

   

   Es Pontàs — "the big bridge" in Catalan — is a limestone sea arch on the south-east coast of Mallorca, standing free in the water a short way off the cliffs between Cala Santanyí and Cala Llombards. About twenty metres high, it looks like a doorway left standing after the rest of the house has fallen into the sea: a thick slab of pale rock resting on two legs, with open water on both sides and the Mediterranean shining through the gap. It is what remains of a stretch of coastline that the waves have gradually hollowed out, the same process that carved the deep, narrow calas all along this part of the island.

   Did you know? Chris Sharma needed almost 50 attempts, each failure ending with a long fall into the sea, before completing Es Pontàs on 26 September 2006.

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6. 06 Pravčická brána

   Czech Republic · 28.4 km from Ústí nad Labem50.884° N 14.281° E

   

   Pravčická brána is a bridge of pale sandstone thrown across the sky above the forests of Bohemian Switzerland, and it is the largest natural arch of its kind on the European mainland. The opening spans 26.5 metres and rises 16 metres beneath the crown, while the deck of rock above it is roughly eight metres wide and, at its thinnest, only about two and a half to three metres thick. Seen from the terraces beside it, the arch looks less like a geological accident than a piece of deliberate architecture, a lintel laid across two pillars of rock at around 447 metres above sea level.

   Did you know? The first written mention of the arch dates from 1410, when it was simply called the Great Gate.

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7. 07 Natural Bridge (Virginia)

   Natural Bridge

   United States37.627° N 79.545° W

   

   Natural Bridge, in Rockbridge County, Virginia, is a stone arch 66 metres high and 27 metres across, spanning a gorge cut by Cedar Creek. It is made of nearly horizontal beds of Ordovician limestone and dolomite, roughly 470 million years old, and is thought to be the last surviving piece of the roof of a cave or underground river tunnel, whose other sections collapsed and eroded away. Standing beneath it, on the creek-side path, the scale is startling, all the more so because a public highway runs across the top.

   Did you know? Thomas Jefferson acquired the bridge from King George III in 1774 for just 20 shillings.

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8. 08 Rainbow Bridge National Monument

   United States37.077° N 110.964° W

   

   Rainbow Bridge, in a side canyon on the southern shore of Lake Powell in Utah, is one of the largest natural bridges in the world: a single arch of salmon-pink sandstone that spans 275 feet (84 m) and rises 290 feet (88 m) above the creek bed. At the top the rock is 42 feet thick and 33 feet wide. It counts as a natural bridge rather than an arch because running water shaped it: Bridge Creek passes beneath the span.

   Did you know? The span formed where Bridge Creek once looped around a sandstone fin; swirling eddies carved alcoves on both sides until the water broke through.

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9. 09 Pont d'Arc

   France44.382° N 4.417° E

   

   The Pont d'Arc is a natural stone bridge flung across the Ardèche River at the entrance to the Ardèche Gorges in southern France. The arch spans about 59 metres and rises some 34 metres above the water — and it is unusual in carrying a living river beneath it rather than standing over a dry valley. It is often called the gateway to the gorges, and it has been a protected natural site since 1931, now within the Gorges de l'Ardèche nature reserve.

   Did you know? The opening is thought to have broken through roughly 124,000 years ago, after the river had spent ages dissolving its way into the limestone.

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10. 10 Mesa Arch

    United States · 34.3 km from Moab38.388° N 109.864° W

    

    Mesa Arch is small as arches go, but it stands in one of the most dramatic positions of any rock span in the American West: right on the lip of the Island in the Sky, the high mesa at the heart of Canyonlands National Park. The arch is a thin band of Navajo Sandstone bridging a gap at the very edge of the cliff, so that the opening beneath it frames not solid ground but empty air and, far below, the broken canyon country of the park.

    Did you know? Mesa Arch has also been known as Rotary Arch and Trail Arch.

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11. 11 Three Natural Bridges

    People's Republic of China29.434° N 107.801° E

    

    In the karst country of Wulong, south-east of Chongqing, the Yangshui River has spent its life dissolving limestone from the inside. What it left behind is a rare sequence: three colossal natural arches strung along a single gorge, each the surviving roof of a cave whose middle has fallen in. The whole run from the upper end of the first bridge to the lower end of the last is only about a kilometre and a half, so the arches follow one another like the vaults of a ruined nave, with open sinkholes of sky between them.

    Did you know? Chinese sources describe the site as the only known place where three natural bridges of this size follow one another along a single river.

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12. 12 Percé Rock

    Perce Rock

    Canada48.524° N 64.199° W

    

    Seen from the shore at Percé, the rock looks less like a piece of geology than a vessel: a long, sheer-sided slab of limestone lying in the Gulf of St. Lawrence with its bow to the sea, often compared to a ship under sail. It is about 433 metres long, 90 metres wide and 88 metres high at its tallest point, and at its seaward end the waves have bored straight through it, leaving an arch roughly 15 metres high. Samuel de Champlain gave it the name Percé, "pierced", in the early 1600s, and the name has stuck to the rock, the bay and the village that grew up facing it.

    Did you know? The rock is a single block estimated at about 5 million tonnes; at its current rate of erosion it would vanish in some 16,000 years.

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13. 13 Torghatten

    Norway65.398° N 12.090° E

    

    Torghatten is a granite mountain on the island of Torget off the coast of Helgeland in northern Norway, and right through its middle runs a natural tunnel big enough to hold a cathedral nave. The hole is 166 metres long, on average 18 metres wide and 41 metres high, and from the sea it shows as a patch of daylight in the dome of the peak, which rises to 258 metres. The opening lies about 115 metres above present sea level, and from inside it frames the flat skerries and open water of the coast.

    Did you know? The mountain's name joins the island of Torget with the Norwegian word for hat, describing the peak's rounded, hat-like silhouette.

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14. 14 Dyrhólaey

    Iceland63.404° N 19.117° W

    

    Dyrhólaey is a headland of dark volcanic rock rising about 120 m above the black sands of Iceland's south coast. It was once an island, formed by an eruption in the sea roughly 100,000 years ago, and the name — "door-hill island" — comes from the great arch that the ocean has cut through its seaward end. The opening is so large that in 1993 a pilot flew a small aircraft through it.

    Did you know? Until the Katla eruption of 1918 pushed new land out to sea at Kötlutangi, Dyrhólaey really was the southernmost point of mainland Iceland.

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15. 15 Arco Naturale

    Italy · 32.5 km from Naples40.549° N 14.256° E

    

    On the wild eastern edge of Capri, where the cliffs fall away towards the Sorrento Peninsula, a great limestone vault stands free against the sky. The Arco Naturale is all that survives of a vast cavern that once opened deep inside the mountain. Over time landslides tore away its walls and rain dissolved the weaker rock, until only a single span of the old roof was left: a bridge of stone about 12 metres wide, hanging some 18 metres above the ground between two rough pillars, one rising from the slope below and the other anchored in the cliff. Geologists place the arch's present shape far back in the Palaeolithic, after the island had stopped being shaken by the movements that formed it.

    Did you know? The arch spans about 12 metres and stands roughly 18 metres above the ground.

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16. 16 Moon Hill

    People's Republic of China24.728° N 110.467° E

    

    Among the thousands of limestone towers that rise from the rice fields around Yangshuo, one is pierced clean through. Moon Hill carries a great round opening near its crest, a natural window about 50 metres high, through which the sky shows as a pale disc against the dark rock. Seen from the road that passes beneath it, the hole seems to change shape as the traveller moves, swelling from a slim crescent to a half moon and then a full circle before narrowing again, a play of phases often given as the reason for its name. The hill rises about 230 metres above the surrounding plain, to a summit of roughly 380 metres above sea level.

    Did you know? The opening through Moon Hill is about 50 metres high.

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17. 17 Puente del Inca

    Argentina32.827° S 69.911° W

    

    Puente del Inca is a natural bridge high in the Andes of Mendoza, at about 2,700 metres above sea level, spanning the Las Cuevas river in a valley below the approach to Aconcagua. The arch is about 53 metres long and 28 metres wide, with its underside some 19 metres above the water. Its rounded, asymmetrical form is not rock in the ordinary sense: the structure is made of cemented debris and travertine, and its surface is stained in streaks of ochre, orange, yellow and green by mineral deposits and microbial growth from the hot springs that emerge beside it.

    Did you know? According to legend, Inca warriors formed a human bridge so their paralysed prince could reach the healing springs, and were turned to stone.

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18. 18 Vratna Gates

    Прерасти у кањону Вратне

    Serbia · 39.2 km from Drobeta-Turnu Severin44.383° N 22.337° E

    

    In a wooded gorge on the slopes of Miroč mountain in eastern Serbia, the little river Vratna flows beneath three natural stone bridges, known locally as prerasti. The arches follow one another along the same short stretch of river, and the gorge between them is a narrow world of limestone walls, woodland and a stream that disappears underground in summer.

    Did you know? The Vratna Gates are often described as the largest natural stone bridges in Europe.

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19. 19 Arch of Cabo San Lucas

    Arco del Cabo San Lucas

    Mexico · 2.1 km from Cabo San Lucas22.876° N 109.895° W

    

    At the very tip of the Baja California peninsula the land runs out in a ragged spine of granite, and at its end the sea has punched a hole straight through the rock. El Arco — also simply called Land's End — stands where the Pacific Ocean meets the Gulf of California, and on a clear day the difference between the two is visible from the water: calm, turquoise water on the gulf side, heavy Pacific swell on the other. The arch itself rises roughly three storeys above the waterline, a squat, massive gateway rather than a delicate span, and the pinnacles around it climb much higher.

    Did you know? Close offshore the San Lucas submarine canyon plunges more than 600 metres, bringing deep ocean water almost to the foot of the arch.

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20. 20 Hole-in-the-Wall, Eastern Cape

    South Africa32.041° S 29.109° E

    

    On the Wild Coast of South Africa's Eastern Cape, a short way south of the village of Coffee Bay, a great slab of rock stands detached from the mainland just off the beach, and straight through its middle runs an opening big enough to sail a small boat through. This is Hole-in-the-Wall. The rock is a wall of layered sandstone and shale, its flat top green with grass, and the hole sits right where the Mpako River reaches the sea. Rather than surf alone, it is the river, pushing through the barrier for countless years, that is credited with wearing the passage open.

    Did you know? Survivors of the Portuguese ship Santo Alberto, wrecked nearby in 1593, walked overland under Nuno Velho all the way to what is now Maputo.

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21. 21 Ōpārara Arch

    New Zealand41.145° S 172.188° E

    

    The Ōpārara River runs straight through a hill of limestone in the rainforest of the northwest South Island of New Zealand, and the tunnel it has carved is big enough to hold a multi-storey building. Ōpārara Arch is the largest natural rock arch in the Southern Hemisphere: by the Department of Conservation's measurements it is about 219 metres long, up to 79 metres wide and 43 metres high. Inside, the river slides beneath the vault stained the colour of strong tea by tannins leached from the surrounding forest, and after rain a small waterfall can spill from the middle of the roof.

    Did you know? Bones from the nearby Honeycomb Hill caves include the first and most complete remains of Haast's eagle, now displayed at Te Papa museum in Wellington.

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22. 22 Marvelous Bridges

    Чудните мостове

    Bulgaria · 39.9 km from Plovdiv41.819° N 24.581° E

    

    The Marvelous Bridges — Chudnite Mostove in Bulgarian — are two huge natural rock arches spanning the valley of the Erkyupriya river high in the Western Rhodopes. The larger one is a massive vault of marble 96 metres long and up to 15 metres wide, carried on three arches; the biggest opening is about 45 metres high and 40 metres wide, and the stream runs beneath the middle span. Walking over the top, through old conifer forest, it is easy to forget that the "bridge" is a single piece of rock.

    Did you know? In 2012 the Bulgarian National Bank issued a silver 10-leva commemorative coin showing the bridges, struck in an edition of just 4,000.

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23. 23 Aloba Arch

    Arche d'Aloba

    Chad16.742° N 22.239° E

    

    Aloba Arch stands in the Ennedi, a sandstone plateau in the far northeast of Chad, in the heart of the Sahara. It is one of the largest natural arches on Earth: the opening rises to a height of about 120 metres and spans roughly 76 metres, a curved band of rock so thin compared with its size that from a distance it looks like a doorway cut in the sky. Its dimensions come largely from photographic estimates rather than precise survey — a sign of how remote it is — but even with that uncertainty it ranks among the longest known arches outside China and the canyon country of Utah.

    Did you know? In 2016 Ray Millar measured the arch's height directly with a laser rangefinder, getting about 403 feet, or roughly 123 metres.

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24. 24 Shipton's Arch

    People's Republic of China39.660° N 75.524° E

    

    British mountaineer Eric Shipton found this arch in 1947 while serving as consul in Kashgar, after months of being turned back by a maze of near-identical canyons whenever he tried approaching from the south. He eventually broke through from the north, photographed it, and wrote it up in his book Mountains of Tartary — enough for Guinness World Records to list it as the tallest natural arch on the planet.

    Did you know? Local people call the arch Tushuk Tash, "pierced rock", and knew it long before outsiders did: its south face can be seen from the plain below.

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25. 25 Green Bridge of Wales

    United Kingdom51.610° N 4.998° W

    

    The Green Bridge of Wales is a single span of limestone standing clear of the cliffs on the south coast of Pembrokeshire, with the sea running through beneath it and a cap of turf on its back. Roughly 24 metres high and with an opening more than 20 metres wide, it has been called perhaps the most spectacular natural arch in the United Kingdom, and its silhouette is a familiar image in tourist literature and geography textbooks alike.

    Did you know? In Welsh the arch is called Pont Werdd Cymru, a direct translation of its English name.

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26. 26 Bow Fiddle Rock

    United Kingdom57.707° N 2.850° W

    

    Bow Fiddle Rock is a sea arch standing just off the cliffs at Portknockie on the Moray coast of north-east Scotland, and its name describes it exactly: a tall, tilted slab of rock curving down into the water, with an arch punched through its base, like the end of a violin bow resting on the sea. From the clifftop the arch frames the water beyond it, and at dawn or dusk, when the light comes low along the coast, it becomes one of the most photographed shapes in this part of Scotland.

    Did you know? The arch stands about 15 metres high, carved from a band of rock known as the Cullen Quartzite, which is some 2,400 metres thick.

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27. 27 Nature's Window

    Australia27.553° S 114.446° E

    

    High on the rim of the Murchison River gorge in Western Australia, wind and weather have hollowed a slab of banded sandstone into a natural arch. Looking through the opening, the frame of red and cream rock layers surrounds a view of the river far below as it swings around The Loop, a long meander inside Kalbarri National Park, with the flat, scrub-covered plateau stretching away beyond.

    Did you know? Fossil trackways around The Loop form what park managers call Australia's most important trackway site, possibly left by sea scorpions among the first animals on land.

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