The Most Beautiful Places in Minas Gerais
6 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful places in Minas Gerais are Church of Saint Francis of Assisi (Pampulha), Sanctuary of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos and Church of Saint Francis of Assisi (Ouro Preto). The list covers 6 places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Minas Gerais, the general mines, owes its character to the gold and diamond rush of the 18th century, when fortunes found in its mountains paid for a series of hill towns crowded with churches. Isolated in the interior, local craftsmen developed their own version of the Baroque, in which soapstone carving, gilded woodwork and painted ceilings reached a rare refinement. Its greatest figure was the sculptor and architect Antônio Francisco Lisboa, known as Aleijadinho.
In Ouro Preto, the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi, with a design attributed to Aleijadinho, has carved soapstone details on its façade and a ceiling painted by Manuel da Costa Ataíde. At Congonhas, the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos is approached past chapels of the Passion and a terrace with Aleijadinho's twelve soapstone prophets. The Mother Church of Saint Anthony in Tiradentes is one of the most richly gilded church interiors in Brazil.
The state has a modern chapter too. In Belo Horizonte, Oscar Niemeyer's Church of Saint Francis of Assisi at Pampulha, from the 1940s, is a row of concrete parabolic vaults with a tiled panel by Candido Portinari. Inhotim, at Brumadinho, sets contemporary art pavilions in a huge botanical garden. In the far north, Gruta do Janelão is a vast cave in the Peruaçu valley where openings in the roof let sunlight fall onto a forest growing inside.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Church of Saint Francis of Assisi (Pampulha) | Church building | |
| 2 | Sanctuary of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos | Church building | ✓ |
| 3 | Church of Saint Francis of Assisi (Ouro Preto) | Church building | |
| 4 | Inhotim | Sculpture garden | |
| 5 | Gruta do Janelão | Cave | |
| 6 | Mother Church of Saint Anthony, Tiradentes | Church building |
01 Church of Saint Francis of Assisi (Pampulha)
Igreja São Francisco de Assis
Brazil · 8.9 km from Belo Horizonte19.858° S 43.979° W
Bernardo Gouvêa · CC BY-SA 3.0 Four rolling concrete vaults, set beside an artificial lake, make the little church of Saint Francis of Assisi in Pampulha one of the founding works of Brazilian modern architecture.
Did you know? When demolition failed, the chapel was cluttered with altars and monuments in clashing styles until the heritage service took charge and Niemeyer refurbished it.
02 Sanctuary of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos
Santuário do Bom Jesus de Matosinhos
Brazil · 19.4 km from Conselheiro Lafaiete20.508° S 43.861° W
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by bea_marques from Pixabay The Sanctuary of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos crowns a hill above the old mining town of Congonhas in Minas Gerais, and it holds the most important body of work by the Brazilian sculptor and architect known as Aleijadinho.
Did you know? Each September, from the 8th to the 14th, the sanctuary hosts a Jubilee granted by Pope Pius VI in 1779; over 100,000 pilgrims were counted in 2005.
03 Church of Saint Francis of Assisi (Ouro Preto)
Igreja de São Francisco de Assis (Ouro Preto)
Brazil20.387° S 43.503° W
Sarah and Iain · CC BY 2.0 Of all the churches of Ouro Preto, the old gold capital of Minas Gerais, the church of Saint Francis of Assisi is the one most closely tied to a single genius.
Did you know? Aleijadinho personally carved the two soapstone pulpits that flank the great arch between the nave and the chancel.
04 Inhotim
Centro de Arte Contemporânea Inhotim
Brazil · 37.4 km from Itaúna20.124° S 44.219° W
Josue Marinho · CC BY 3.0 Inhotim, in the hills of Minas Gerais outside the small town of Brumadinho, is one of the most unusual art museums anywhere: not a building with a garden attached, but a landscape in which contemporary art is scattered across lakes, forest and tropical planting, so that reaching each work is part of seeing it.
Did you know? Chris Burden's Beam Drop is made of 72 steel beams, each released from a crane into a pit of wet cement and left exactly where it landed.
05 Gruta do Janelão
Brazil15.117° S 44.241° W
Manu Alves · CC BY-SA 4.0 Gruta do Janelão is a cave where the forest grows indoors. 5 km its roof has collapsed in places into enormous openings, so that shafts of daylight fall onto the cave floor and trees have taken root inside the gallery, rising toward the light between walls of grey limestone.
Did you know? Two giant collapse sinkholes along the cave, each more than 100 metres wide and deep, are what let daylight and forest inside.
06 Mother Church of Saint Anthony, Tiradentes
Igreja Matriz de Santo Antônio
Brazil · 7.8 km from São João del Rei21.110° S 44.178° W
Ricardo André Frantz · CC BY 3.0 In the colonial town of Tiradentes, the Mother Church of Saint Anthony (Igreja Matriz de Santo Antônio) gathers a full century of Brazilian Baroque under one roof.
Did you know? The pipe organ was brought from Porto in Portugal and is regarded as one of a kind, with a Rococo case and painted decoration.
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 Minas Gerais?
- On our list, Church of Saint Francis of Assisi (Pampulha) ranks first, followed by Sanctuary of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos and Church of Saint Francis of Assisi (Ouro Preto).
- Who was Aleijadinho?
- Aleijadinho, Antônio Francisco Lisboa, was an 18th-century sculptor and architect from Minas Gerais and the leading artist of Brazilian colonial Baroque. His best-known works are the twelve soapstone prophets at Congonhas and the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi in Ouro Preto.
- Why are there so many Baroque churches in Minas Gerais?
- The gold rush of the 18th century brought great wealth to towns such as Ouro Preto, Mariana, São João del-Rei and Tiradentes. Religious brotherhoods competed to build and decorate churches, and the result is the largest group of Baroque churches in Brazil.
- What is the Pampulha Modern Ensemble?
- It is a group of buildings around the artificial lake of Pampulha in Belo Horizonte, designed by Oscar Niemeyer in the early 1940s, with gardens by Roberto Burle Marx. It was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016.
- What kinds of places are there to see in Minas Gerais?
- In our collection, the places in Minas Gerais are most often churches (4), caves (1) and sculpture gardens (1).
- How many places are on this list in Minas Gerais?
- The list covers 6 places.