The Most Beautiful Pagodas in Myanmar
6 places · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful pagodas in Myanmar are Shwedagon Pagoda, Shwezigon Pagoda and Kuthodaw Pagoda. The list covers 6 pagodas. Last updated 14 October 2026.
Myanmar is a land of stupas, which Burmese call zedi or paya, and building one is a way of earning merit, so the gilding and rebuilding never stop. Theravada Buddhism has shaped the country for a millennium, and its pagodas range from gold-sheathed giants to white shrines on lonely rocks.
Shwedagon Pagoda crowns Singuttara Hill in Yangon; its stupa is covered in gold and topped by a finial set with diamonds and rubies. Kuthodaw Pagoda in Mandalay is surrounded by 729 marble slabs inscribed with the entire Pali canon, often called the world's largest book. Hsinbyume Pagoda at Mingun rises in seven wavy white terraces that represent the mountains around Mount Meru. Kyauk Ka Lat Pagoda near Hpa-An is balanced on top of a limestone pinnacle standing in a lake.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shwedagon Pagoda | Stupa | |
| 2 | Shwezigon Pagoda | Pagoda | |
| 3 | Kuthodaw Pagoda | Stupa | |
| 4 | Hsinbyume Pagoda | Pagoda | |
| 5 | Shwesandaw Pagoda | Pagoda | |
| 6 | Kyauk Ka Lat Pagoda | Pagoda |
01 Shwedagon Pagoda
Myanmar · 2.2 km from Yangon16.798° N 96.149° E
Image by sharonang from Pixabay What makes a visit memorable is the platform around the base, a wide terrace crowded with smaller stupas, shrines, pavilions and images. Around the foot of the stupa are the planetary posts, eight shrines for the days of the week, with Wednesday split into morning and afternoon where devotees perform blessing rituals at the post of the day on which they were born. The terrace is busiest and most beautiful at dusk, when the gold changes colour with the setting sun. The site also carries a violent history: a 300-tonne bronze bell given in 1485 was lost in the river during Portuguese plunder in 1608, and British troops occupied and fortified the pagoda from 1852 to 1929.
Did you know? Despite repeated searches since the 1980s, including sonar surveys, the Dhammazedi bell has never been recovered from the river mud.
02 Shwezigon Pagoda
Myanmar · 25.4 km from Pakokku21.190° N 94.895° E
DIMMIS · CC BY-SA 3.0 Shwezigon also records a meeting of beliefs. In its outer shrines the court gathered images of the 37 nats, the spirits of the older Burmese religion, placing them under the protection of Buddhism – a compromise that shaped Myanmar's popular faith. After the 1975 earthquake the dome was covered with copper plates and later regilded, while the lower terraces keep their original form.
03 Kuthodaw Pagoda
Myanmar · 4.7 km from Mandalay22.005° N 96.113° E
Image by tonywuphotography from Pixabay The complex has survived hard times. After the British annexed Mandalay in 1885, troops were quartered in the religious precincts; when they withdrew, the pagoda had been stripped of its bells, jewels and marble tiles, and the gold ink had been scraped from the letters. A committee of monks and members of the old court organised the restoration from 1892, re-inking the texts in black, and it was then that the star flower trees were planted between the rows. Their jasmine-like scent still fills the enclosures, and families picnic in their shade.
Did you know? The marble came from Sagyin Hill, about 32 miles north of Mandalay, and was shipped to the city by river.
04 Hsinbyume Pagoda
Myanmar · 11.5 km from Mandalay22.056° N 96.017° E
Image by MarlyneArt from Pixabay The pagoda has been damaged and rebuilt before. The earthquake of 1839 wrecked much of it, and King Mindon had it restored in 1874, the form in which it became famous. On 28 March 2025 the magnitude 7.7 earthquake centred near Mandalay struck the region again; the central tower of the pagoda almost entirely collapsed and the stairs around it were damaged, together with other monuments at Mingun. What survives is the ringed plan of the terraces, still legible as an image of the Buddhist world-mountain, and the story of a king's grief given architectural form twice in two centuries.
Did you know? The princess died in November 1812, just seven days after giving birth to her son, Setkya Mintha.
05 Shwesandaw Pagoda
Myanmar · 28.6 km from Chauk21.164° N 94.866° E
Anandajoti · CC BY-SA 4.0 Bagan itself was the royal capital from the mid-11th century until the kingdom's collapse in the late 13th century, and in some 250 years its kings and wealthy patrons built thousands of religious monuments across the plain. Bagan lies in an active earthquake zone, and the great earthquake of July 1975 brought down the pagoda's original hti, which still lies within the compound beside the monument; a new finial was fitted soon afterwards. A further strong earthquake in August 2016 damaged hundreds of Bagan's monuments. The city's temples were inscribed together on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2019.
Did you know? The pagoda rises in five square terraces topped by two octagonal bases and a bell-shaped stupa.
06 Kyauk Ka Lat Pagoda
Myanmar · 4.3 km from Hpa-An16.818° N 97.641° E
Paingpeace · CC BY-SA 4.0 Hpa-An itself, also spelled Pa-an, is the capital and largest city of Kayin State, home to some 75,000 people, most of them Karen. Several other Buddhist sites lie close by in the surrounding karst country; local legend explains even the city's name through a tale of a frog king and a dragon king fighting over a magic ruby.
Did you know? A wild ginger relative, Globba zwegabinensis, was named by botanists after the neighbouring mountain where it was first found.
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 pagodas in Myanmar?
- On our list, Shwedagon Pagoda ranks first, followed by Shwezigon Pagoda and Kuthodaw Pagoda.
- Why is Kuthodaw Pagoda called the world's largest book?
- Its grounds hold 729 stone tablets, each in its own small shrine, carved under King Mindon in the 19th century with the full text of the Tipitaka, the Theravada Buddhist scriptures.
- What is inside the Shwedagon Pagoda?
- According to tradition it enshrines relics of four Buddhas, including eight hairs of Gautama Buddha, which is why it is the most sacred Buddhist site in Myanmar.
- How many pagodas are on this list in Myanmar?
- The list covers 6 pagodas.