The Most Beautiful Pagodas in the World
13 places in 4 countries · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful pagodas in the world are Shwedagon Pagoda (Myanmar), Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple (People's Republic of China) and Pagoda of Fogong Temple (Yingxian Wooden Pagoda) (People's Republic of China). The list covers 13 pagodas in 4 countries. Myanmar has the most, with 6. Last updated 14 October 2026.
A pagoda is a tower built to hold the sacred, and its beauty lies in repetition and rhythm: tier after tier of eaves stepping upward, a silhouette that narrows toward the sky, a gilded spire catching the sun above a city. The finest are feats of craft as much as faith. Wooden pagodas have stood through centuries of earthquakes thanks to flexible timber construction, and the great gilded stupas of Myanmar are renewed with gold by generations of pilgrims.
The pagodas here range across Asia. The Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple in Dali rise in front of the Cang Mountains, and the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda in Shanxi, built in 1056, is the oldest and tallest fully wooden pagoda in China. In Yangon, the gilded Shwedagon dominates the skyline, while Kuthodaw Pagoda in Mandalay is surrounded by hundreds of small shrines, each holding a marble slab inscribed with Buddhist scripture. Hsinbyume at Mingun is a white fantasy of wave-like terraces, and Nyatapola in Bhaktapur, Nepal, rises in five roofs above a stepped stone plinth. In Japan, the Chūreitō frames Mount Fuji, Tō-ji in Kyoto holds the tallest wooden pagoda in the country, and the pagoda of Haguro-san stands alone in a forest of cedars.
Every pagoda here was chosen for how it looks and placed in order of beauty. Each has its own text, a photograph credited to its author and a point on the map, and the section also opens country by country on separate pages.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shwedagon Pagoda | Stupa | Myanmar | |
| 2 | Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple | Pagoda | People's Republic of China | |
| 3 | Pagoda of Fogong Temple (Yingxian Wooden Pagoda) | Pagoda | People's Republic of China | |
| 4 | Shwezigon Pagoda | Pagoda | Myanmar | |
| 5 | Kuthodaw Pagoda | Stupa | Myanmar | |
| 6 | Tō-ji Temple | Pagoda | Japan | ✓ |
| 7 | Nyatapola Temple | Pagoda | Nepal | |
| 8 | Chūreitō Pagoda (Arakurayama Sengen Park) | Pagoda | Japan | |
| 9 | Yasaka Pagoda (Hōkan-ji), Kyoto | Pagoda | Japan | |
| 10 | Hsinbyume Pagoda | Pagoda | Myanmar | |
| 11 | Shwesandaw Pagoda | Pagoda | Myanmar | |
| 12 | Kyauk Ka Lat Pagoda | Pagoda | Myanmar | |
| 13 | Five-storied Pagoda, Haguro-san | Pagoda | Japan |
01 Shwedagon Pagoda
Myanmar · 2.2 km from Yangon16.798° N 96.149° E
Image by sharonang from Pixabay The golden stupa of Shwedagon crowns Singuttara Hill in the middle of Yangon and dominates the whole city. The spire itself is about 112 metres tall, and with the hill beneath it its tip stands some 170 metres above sea level. It is the most sacred Buddhist site in Myanmar. Tradition holds that two merchant brothers, Tapussa and Bhallika, met the Buddha and received eight of his hairs, with instructions for enshrining them, and that the stupa was founded to hold those relics along with objects of earlier Buddhas. The legend puts its beginnings more than 2,500 years ago; the first firm historical record is of 1362, when King Binnya U raised it to about 18 metres.
Did you know? The Great Bell of Dhammazedi, cast in 1484 for the pagoda from roughly 294 tonnes of metal, is often described as the largest bell ever made.
02 Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple
People's Republic of China · 16.5 km from Dali25.708° N 100.146° E
Image by 多尼的棍仔糖 from Pixabay Three white towers stand in a triangle at the foot of the Cangshan range, looking out over Erhai Lake, just north of the old town of Dali in Yunnan: the Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple, the emblem of the region since the days of the Nanzhao and Dali kingdoms. Seen from a distance against the green wall of the mountains, their pale silhouettes are one of the most recognisable images of south-western China.
Did you know? Restorers in 1978 found a pearl-studded gilded silver Garuda inside the main tower, along with more than 200 vajra ritual implements and thousands of prayer beads.
03 Pagoda of Fogong Temple (Yingxian Wooden Pagoda)
People's Republic of China39.565° N 113.182° E
Charlie fong · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Pagoda of Fogong Temple in Ying County, Shanxi, is the oldest fully wooden pagoda still standing in China — which is why the whole country simply calls it the Muta, the Timber Pagoda. It was built in 1056 under Emperor Daozong of the Liao dynasty, and it has stood for almost a thousand years, riding out earthquakes that shook the region repeatedly in its first decades. A plaque bearing the calligraphy of the Ming Zhengde emperor calls it a wonder of the world.
Did you know? In 2016 Guinness World Records certified the pagoda as the tallest wooden pagoda in the world.
More about Pagoda of Fogong Temple (Yingxian Wooden Pagoda) →
04 Shwezigon Pagoda
Myanmar · 25.4 km from Pakokku21.190° N 94.895° E
DIMMIS · CC BY-SA 3.0 The Shwezigon Pagoda is the golden bell that set the pattern for Burmese stupas. It stands at Nyaung-U, at the northern edge of the plain of Bagan, and was begun around 1059–1060 by King Anawrahta, founder of the Pagan kingdom, and finished under his son Kyansittha; most accounts give its completion as 1102. Its solid, bell-shaped dome on stepped square terraces became the prototype repeated in countless later pagodas across the country.
05 Kuthodaw Pagoda
Myanmar · 4.7 km from Mandalay22.005° N 96.113° E
Image by tonywuphotography from Pixabay At the foot of Mandalay Hill, a golden stupa rises above a sea of small white shrines. Kuthodaw Pagoda – the "Royal Merit" – was built by King Mindon as part of the foundation of his new royal capital of Mandalay; its central stupa, gilded above the terraces, stands about 57 metres high and is modelled on the Shwezigon Pagoda near Bagan. Construction began in 1860, and the crowning umbrella, the hti, was raised in July 1862.
Did you know? Each marble slab is about 1.5 metres tall, just over a metre wide and 13 centimetres thick, so the whole 'book' has 1,460 stone pages.
06 Tō-ji Temple
Japan · 5.7 km from Kyoto34.981° N 135.748° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Kakidai · CC BY-SA 4.0 Tō-ji, the East Temple, is one of the few survivors of Kyoto's founding plan. It was established in 796, two years after the capital moved here, as one of a pair of state temples flanking the great southern gate of the city; its twin, the West Temple, vanished long ago. In 823 the emperor entrusted Tō-ji to the monk Kūkai, who had brought the esoteric Shingon school back from China, and it has been a centre of Shingon Buddhism ever since. The temple's formal name, Kyō-ō-gokoku-ji, speaks of its original role: protecting the nation.
Did you know? Tō-ji's medieval archive of more than 24,000 documents, dating from 763 to 1711, has been on UNESCO's Memory of the World register since 2015.
07 Nyatapola Temple
Nepal · 9.5 km from Lalitpur27.671° N 85.429° E
Ganesh Paudel · CC BY-SA 3.0 Nyatapola is one of the most perfectly proportioned buildings in the Kathmandu Valley. It rises above Taumadhi Square in Bhaktapur to about 33 metres: five stepped brick plinths, then five diminishing roofs carried on carved wooden struts, the whole tapering to a slender peak. The name in Nepal Bhasa says exactly what it is, "five-storeyed roof". From the square the temple fills the sky above the surrounding brick houses.
Did you know? Nyatapola is generally regarded as the tallest temple in Nepal, rising about 33 metres above Taumadhi Square.
08 Chūreitō Pagoda (Arakurayama Sengen Park)
Japan · 25.8 km from Kōfu35.501° N 138.801° E
lumoplank · CC0 Arakurayama Sengen Park, on a wooded hillside above Fujiyoshida, is the source of one of the most reproduced images of Japan: a red five-storey pagoda in the foreground, a cloud of cherry blossom around it, and the perfect cone of Mount Fuji filling the sky behind. The pagoda, called the Chūreitō, is not a Buddhist temple building at all but a war memorial. Completed in 1962 in reinforced concrete and about 19.5 m tall, it was built in the traditional form to honour 1,055 people of Fujiyoshida who died in Japan's wars.
Did you know? The Arakura Fuji Sengen Shrine at the foot of the stairway is said to have been founded in 705, more than twelve centuries before the pagoda.
09 Yasaka Pagoda (Hōkan-ji), Kyoto
Japan · 4.7 km from Kyoto34.999° N 135.779° E
663highland · CC BY 2.5 The five-tiered pagoda of Hōkan-ji rises above the roofs of an old residential quarter, its sloping eaves stacked one over another, and for many people it is the image of old Kyoto. Known simply as Yasaka-no-tō, the Yasaka Pagoda, it stands in the Higashiyama district on the eastern side of the city, between the great hillside temple of Kiyomizu-dera and the Yasaka Shrine, and it is the last surviving building of a temple that once filled this slope. At about 46 metres it is among the tallest wooden five-storey pagodas in Japan.
Did you know? Temple tradition dates the founding to 589, while the temple's first written mention appears in an official chronicle covering the year 837.
10 Hsinbyume Pagoda
Myanmar · 11.5 km from Mandalay22.056° N 96.017° E
Image by MarlyneArt from Pixabay On the west bank of the Irrawaddy at Mingun, a short way upriver from Mandalay, King Bagyidaw built a pagoda in 1816 in memory of his first consort and cousin, Princess Hsinbyume, who had died in childbirth nearby. It is also known as Myatheindan. Instead of the familiar bell-shaped stupa on a plain base, the design translated a piece of Buddhist cosmology into brick and whitewash: the pagoda was a model of Mount Meru, the mountain at the centre of the universe, and its seven concentric terraces stood for the seven mountain ranges that ring it.
Did you know? The design copies the Sulamani, a mythical pagoda that Buddhist cosmology places on the summit of Mount Meru, rather than any real Burmese temple.
11 Shwesandaw Pagoda
Myanmar · 28.6 km from Chauk21.164° N 94.866° E
Anandajoti · CC BY-SA 4.0 On the dusty plain of Bagan, where more than two thousand brick temples and stupas rise above the scrub along the Irrawaddy, the Shwesandaw stands out for its sheer bulk. A stepped pyramid of five whitewashed terraces, with steep stairways climbing the middle of every side, carries two octagonal bases and a bell-shaped stupa crowned with a hti, the ornamental umbrella that tops Burmese pagodas. It is counted among the tallest monuments of Bagan, and its upper terraces command a sweeping view over the temple-studded plain towards the river.
Did you know? King Anawrahta built the Shwesandaw around 1057, after conquering the Mon city of Thaton.
12 Kyauk Ka Lat Pagoda
Myanmar · 4.3 km from Hpa-An16.818° N 97.641° E
Paingpeace · CC BY-SA 4.0 Around Hpa-An in Myanmar's Kayin State, abrupt limestone towers rise straight out of the rice paddies, and Kyauk Ka Lat is the most improbable of them: a narrow, sheer pinnacle that thins towards its base, crowned with a small golden stupa and standing on a tiny island in the middle of an artificial lake. Shrines and monastery buildings crowd the rock around its foot, white egrets work the water, and the long ridge of Mount Zwegabin — at 722 metres the highest point in the region and a pilgrimage mountain in its own right — rises behind it, so that pagoda, lake and mountain read as a single composition.
Did you know? Behind the pagoda rises Mount Zwegabin, whose summit pagoda is said to enshrine a hair relic of the Buddha and draws thousands of pilgrims.
13 Five-storied Pagoda, Haguro-san
Japan · 12 km from Tsuruoka38.705° N 139.968° E
Mimissu · CC BY-SA 4.0 Deep in a forest of ancient cedars on the lower slope of Mount Haguro, a five-storied pagoda of unpainted wood rises almost 30 metres among the trunks. There is no temple around it any more, no courtyard and no gate; the tower stands alone beside the stone pilgrim path, its grey shingle roofs often wet with mist or edged with snow. It is a National Treasure of Japan and is said to be the oldest pagoda in the Tōhoku region.
Did you know? The pagoda stands near the start of a pilgrim stairway of 2,446 stone steps, about 1.7 km long, begun in 1648 under the abbot Ten'yū.
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 is the most beautiful pagoda in the world?
- On our list, Shwedagon Pagoda (Myanmar) ranks first, followed by Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple (People's Republic of China) and Pagoda of Fogong Temple (Yingxian Wooden Pagoda) (People's Republic of China).
- Which country has the most beautiful pagodas?
- In our collection, the most come from Myanmar (6), Japan (4) and the People's Republic of China (2).
- What is the difference between a pagoda and a stupa?
- A stupa is a solid dome-shaped monument that enshrines relics, while a pagoda is a tiered tower that developed from it in East Asia. In Myanmar, large stupas such as Shwedagon are commonly called pagodas.
- What is the tallest wooden pagoda in Japan?
- The five-storied pagoda of Tō-ji in Kyoto is the tallest wooden pagoda in Japan.
- How many pagodas are on this list in the world?
- The list covers 13 pagodas in 4 countries. Myanmar has the most, with 6.