The Most Beautiful Natural Arches in North America
7 places in 3 countries · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful natural arches in North America are Delicate Arch (United States), Landscape Arch (United States) and Natural Bridge (Virginia) (United States). The list covers 7 natural arches in 3 countries. The United States has the most, with 5. Last updated 13 October 2026.
North America has more natural arches than anywhere else on Earth, and most of them stand on the Colorado Plateau. There, layers of sandstone were lifted and flexed over buried salt beds, cracking into parallel fins; water, frost and wind then hollowed the fins until only thin spans of rock remained. Elsewhere on the continent the same idea appears in other materials, from limestone bridges cut by streams to sea arches pounded out of cliffs by the ocean.
Delicate Arch in Utah stands alone on the rim of a slickrock bowl, so recognisable that it appears on the state's licence plates. Landscape Arch, also in Arches National Park, is a ribbon of rock spanning nearly ninety metres and thinning to only a few metres at its narrowest point. Mesa Arch in Canyonlands frames the canyons below from the edge of a cliff, and its underside glows red when the low sun strikes it. Rainbow Bridge, near Lake Powell, is one of the largest natural bridges in the world and has long been sacred to the Navajo.
The forms change outside the desert. Natural Bridge in Virginia is a limestone span carved by Cedar Creek, once owned by Thomas Jefferson. Percé Rock, at the tip of Quebec's Gaspé Peninsula, is a long limestone wall rising from the sea with a hole worn through its end. The Arch of Cabo San Lucas marks the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula, where the Gulf of California opens into the Pacific.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Delicate Arch | Natural arch | United States | |
| 2 | Landscape Arch | Natural arch | United States | |
| 3 | Natural Bridge (Virginia) | Natural arch | United States | |
| 4 | Rainbow Bridge National Monument | Natural arch | United States | |
| 5 | Mesa Arch | Natural arch | United States | |
| 6 | Percé Rock | Stack | Canada | |
| 7 | Arch of Cabo San Lucas | Natural arch | Mexico |
01 Delicate Arch
United States · 19.4 km from Moab38.744° N 109.499° W
Image by ISchneider from Pixabay Like the other arches of the park, it is carved from Entrada Sandstone. A narrow fin of rock was worn down by weathering and erosion until only a slender span remained on two tapering legs. Local cowboys, noting its shape, called it the Chaps or the Schoolmarm's Bloomers; the present name was given by Frank Beckwith, who led a scientific expedition into the area in the winter of 1933–1934. The arch was not part of the original Arches National Monument of 1929 and was only included when the boundaries were extended in 1938.
Did you know? The arch stands at about 4,606 feet above sea level on the rim of its sandstone bowl.
02 Landscape Arch
United States · 24.6 km from Moab38.791° N 109.607° W
Thomas Wolf , www.foto-tw.de · CC BY-SA 3.0 What makes it extraordinary is proportion. The span is a long, shallow curve of rock so slender for its length that it reads almost as a line drawn against the sky, set among the rock formations of Devils Garden. The arch was named by Frank Beckwith, who led a scientific expedition into what was then Arches National Monument in the winter of 1933–34.
Did you know? Two more smaller rockfalls followed the 1995 collapse within the same month, on 13 and 21 June.
03 Natural Bridge (Virginia)
Natural Bridge
United States37.627° N 79.545° W
George Wharton James · Public domain For the Monacan people the bridge was a sacred place, linked in tradition to a victory over pursuing enemies. In 1742 an exploring party sent by Virginia's governor followed Cedar Creek through the arch, and in the following decades it became one of the celebrated wonders of the New World. " are still pointed out on the wall of the arch. Thomas Jefferson bought 157 acres including the bridge in 1774, called it "the most Sublime of nature's works", built a log cabin here and surveyed it himself in 1802.
Did you know? Jefferson's two-room log cabin at the bridge hosted guests including John Marshall, James Monroe, Henry Clay, Sam Houston and Martin Van Buren.
04 Rainbow Bridge National Monument
United States37.077° N 110.964° W
Image by ArtTower from Pixabay The geology is legible in the arch itself. The span and upper body are Navajo Sandstone, the petrified dunes of an ancient desert, pale and smoothly curved; the base, through which Bridge Creek cuts, is the older Kayenta Formation. The contrast between the two rocks, and the way the bow of the arch echoes the shape the Navajo name describes, a rainbow turned to stone, is what you notice on arrival.
Did you know? The creek's earlier course, before it cut through the fin, can still be traced in the rock above the bridge.
05 Mesa Arch
United States · 34.3 km from Moab38.388° N 109.864° W
Thomas Wolf , www.foto-tw.de · CC BY-SA 3.0 What has made it famous is a trick of light at dawn. As the sun comes up, its rays strike the cliff face below the arch and bounce upward onto the underside of the span. For a short while, often little more than a quarter of an hour, the underside glows a deep orange-red while the canyon behind is still in shadow, and the arch appears to be lit from within. The glowing span, with the La Sal Mountains framed in its opening, has become one of the most photographed sunrise scenes in the American Southwest.
Did you know? It is classed as a pothole arch: rainwater pooling on the sandstone behind the rim slowly dissolved its way through the rock.
06 Percé Rock
Perce Rock
Canada48.524° N 64.199° W
Image by nightelves from Pixabay The rock is a record of change measured in centuries rather than millennia. When Jacques Cartier sailed past in 1534 he described three arches; later drawings show two, and the outer one fell with a crash on 17 June 1845, leaving the free-standing pillar that still guards the eastern tip. The stone itself is Devonian limestone laid down some 400 million years ago, and around 150 fossil species have been identified in it, from trilobites and brachiopods to corals. Erosion is still at work, and estimates put the loss at roughly 300 tonnes a year, which is why nobody climbs it and why walkers who cross the sand bar at low tide are warned to keep clear of its foot.
Did you know? It ranks among the largest natural arches in the world that stand in water, and small boats can pass through the arch at high tide.
07 Arch of Cabo San Lucas
Arco del Cabo San Lucas
Mexico · 2.1 km from Cabo San Lucas22.876° N 109.895° W
Image by SilverTongueSteve from Pixabay The rock is far older than the resort that now photographs it. The granite of this headland crystallised deep underground in the Cretaceous, around 115 million years ago, and was later exposed and cut into fins, needles and caves by waves, wind and tide. The contrast between the two seas on either flank of the ridge is part of what shaped it: one side sheltered, the other constantly pounded, so erosion works unevenly and leaves the harder rock standing as walls and bridges.
Did you know? The canyon's underwater sandfalls, rivers of sand pouring down its slopes, were first seen by a Scripps expedition in 1959 and later filmed by Jacques Cousteau.
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 natural arches in North America?
- On our list, Delicate Arch (United States) ranks first, followed by Landscape Arch (United States) and Natural Bridge (Virginia) (United States).
- Which country has the most natural arches in North America?
- In our collection, the most come from the United States (5), Canada (1) and Mexico (1).
- What is the difference between a natural arch and a natural bridge?
- A natural bridge is a type of arch carved by flowing water, usually a stream cutting through rock. A natural arch is formed by other kinds of erosion, such as frost, wind and rain working on a rock fin.
- How many arches are there in Arches National Park?
- More than two thousand natural arches have been documented in the park, which holds the densest concentration of arches in the world.
- Is Landscape Arch the longest natural arch in the world?
- It is the longest in Arches National Park and among the longest anywhere, but several arches in southern China, such as Xianren Bridge, have longer spans.
- How many natural arches are on this list in North America?
- The list covers 7 natural arches in 3 countries. The United States has the most, with 5.