The Most Beautiful Places in Bali
9 places · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful places in Bali are Tanah Lot, Besakih and Pura Ulun Danu Bratan. The list covers 9 places. Last updated 14 October 2026.
Bali is a volcanic island whose culture sets it apart within Indonesia: it remains predominantly Hindu, with a religion shaped by centuries of Javanese influence and by local traditions of ancestor and nature worship. Its volcanoes, crowned by Mount Agung, are seen as the seats of the gods, its lakes as sources of life, and water is shared between villages through subak, a cooperative irrigation system organised around temples.
Besakih, on the slopes of Mount Agung, is the island's mother temple, a complex of dozens of shrines climbing the mountainside in terraces. Pura Ulun Danu Bratan honours the goddess of the lake, and its tiered meru shrines stand on small islets so that they seem to float on Lake Bratan in the highland mist. Pura Lempuyang, on a mountain in the east, is famous for its split gate, whose two halves frame the cone of Agung in the distance.
Older layers appear in the river valleys. At Gunung Kawi, a row of royal memorial shrines from the eleventh century is carved directly into the cliffs of the Pakerisan gorge, each standing in a deep rock niche. Jatiluwih shows the subak system at its fullest: rice terraces that follow the contours of the slopes below Mount Batukaru, watered by channels shared among farmers, and part of the cultural landscape that UNESCO lists as a World Heritage Site.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tanah Lot | Temple | |
| 2 | Besakih | Temple | |
| 3 | Pura Ulun Danu Bratan | Temple | |
| 4 | Lake Batur | Volcanic crater lake | ✓ |
| 5 | Uluwatu Temple | Temple | |
| 6 | Gunung Kawi | Rock-cut architecture | |
| 7 | Pura Lempuyang Luhur | Temple | |
| 8 | Kelingking Beach | Beach | |
| 9 | Jatiluwih Rice Terraces | Terraced fields |
01 Tanah Lot
Indonesia · 14.9 km from Denpasar8.621° S 115.087° E
Jakub Hałun · CC BY-SA 4.0 This shrine sits on a small offshore rock because, according to Balinese tradition, it was put there on purpose — moved, not built. The story credits the 16th-century wandering priest Dang Hyang Nirartha, who saw a light shining from the sea near the village of Beraban and came to meditate there.
Did you know? More than a third of the rock that appears natural today is in fact disguised artificial rock added during restoration funded by a Japanese government loan.
02 Besakih
Indonesia · 39.8 km from Denpasar8.374° S 115.452° E
Image by MariaHZ from Pixabay High on the southwestern flank of Gunung Agung, Bali's tallest and most sacred volcano, Besakih rises in tier after tier of black-thatched shrines, stepped courtyards and carved stone gateways.
Did you know? According to Balinese tradition, the sage Rsi Markandeya first received divine revelation at Pura Basukian, the shrine within the complex regarded as the cradle of Balinese Hinduism.
03 Pura Ulun Danu Bratan
Indonesia · 18.9 km from Singaraja8.271° S 115.167° E
Image by DEZALB from Pixabay High in the Bedugul highlands of central Bali, at around 1,200 metres above the sea, Pura Ulun Danu Beratan stands at the edge of Lake Beratan in the village of Candikuning, and when the water is high its lakeside shrines seem to rise straight out of it.
Did you know? The eleven-tiered meru by the water is dedicated to Shiva and his consort Parvati.
04 Lake Batur
Indonesia · 38 km from Singaraja8.257° S 115.409° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Made agus devayana · CC BY-SA 4.0 Lake Batur fills the southeastern floor of the Batur caldera in the Kintamani highlands of central Bali, some 30 km northeast of Ubud. At about 1,030 metres above sea level and close to 16 square kilometres in area, it is the largest lake on the island, with a deepest point of around 88 metres.
05 Uluwatu Temple
Indonesia · 16.7 km from Denpasar8.829° S 115.084° E
Image by moritzklassen from Pixabay Pura Luhur Uluwatu clings to the very edge of the Bukit Peninsula, Bali's limestone tail, where the land ends in a sheer cliff about 70 metres above the Indian Ocean. The name says as much: ulu means edge or tip, watu means rock.
Did you know? Several smaller satellite temples, among them Pura Bajurit, Pura Pererepan and Pura Kulat, are bound to Uluwatu and celebrate with it.
06 Gunung Kawi
Indonesia · 27.1 km from Denpasar8.423° S 115.312° E
Visions of Domino · CC BY 2.0 On both banks of the Pakerisan river in central Bali, nine shrines have been cut straight into the soft rock of the gorge walls. Each is set in its own deep, arched niche, some seven metres high, which shelters the carving from erosion, so the monuments look like tall temple facades set into the cliff.
Did you know? The name Gunung Kawi is usually explained as gunung, mountain, plus kawi, carving, giving roughly the shrines carved into the mountain.
07 Pura Lempuyang Luhur
Indonesia8.391° S 115.631° E
Flickr user: yeowatzup https://www.flickr.com/photos/yeowatzup/ · CC BY 2.0 Pura Lempuyang Luhur crowns Mount Lempuyang, the peak also known as Gamongan Hill, in Karangasem in the far east of Bali.
Did you know? According to the palm-leaf text Markandeya Purana, worship here was founded in the 8th century by the sage Rsi Markandeya.
08 Kelingking Beach
Indonesia · 29.9 km from Denpasar8.750° S 115.473° E
Dini Rosyadah Tridya · CC BY-SA 4.0 Seen from the clifftop on the west coast of Nusa Penida, the headland at Kelingking looks like an animal lying in the sea: a long ridge of limestone, green along its spine and sheer on its flanks, running down into turquoise water with a narrow crest and a blunt, bowed head.
Did you know? That nickname came from the kingdom of Klungkung's practice of exiling criminals, political opponents and reputed black magic practitioners to the island.
09 Jatiluwih Rice Terraces
Indonesia · 28.1 km from Singaraja8.367° S 115.131° E
Imacim · CC BY-SA 4.0 Jatiluwih is where Bali's rice terraces are at their most expansive.
Did you know? Under the subak, neighbouring farmers plant in step, so large areas lie fallow at the same time and pests lose their habitat.
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 places in Bali?
- On our list, Tanah Lot ranks first, followed by Besakih and Pura Ulun Danu Bratan.
- What is subak in Bali?
- Subak is the traditional Balinese system of managing irrigation water for rice terraces, run cooperatively by farmers and organised around water temples. It is recognised by UNESCO as part of the Cultural Landscape of Bali Province.
- Why is Bali Hindu when most of Indonesia is Muslim?
- Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms ruled much of Java and Bali for centuries, and when Islam spread across Java, many of the Hindu Majapahit elite and their traditions found refuge in Bali. Balinese Hinduism blended that heritage with local beliefs.
- What is the split gate at Pura Lempuyang?
- It is a candi bentar, a traditional Balinese gateway that looks like a single tower cut in two. At Lempuyang, the gap between the halves frames Mount Agung.
- What kinds of places are there to see in Bali?
- In our collection, the places in Bali are most often temples (5), crater lakes (1), beaches (1) and rock-cut monuments (1).
- How many places are on this list in Bali?
- The list covers 9 places.