The Most Beautiful Sacred Places in Croatia
5 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful sacred places in Croatia are Trogir Cathedral, Šibenik Cathedral and Euphrasian Basilica. The list covers 5 sacred places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Croatia's Adriatic coast has been a meeting point of Rome, Byzantium and Venice, and its churches record each of them. Early Christian basilicas preserve Byzantine mosaics, pre-Romanesque builders reused stones from Roman forums, and local masters of the Middle Ages and Renaissance carved portals and cathedrals from the fine white limestone of the Dalmatian islands.
Trogir Cathedral is famous for the Romanesque portal carved by Master Radovan in 1240, with Adam and Eve standing on lions. Šibenik Cathedral, a UNESCO site, was built entirely of stone, even its vaults and roof, and is encircled by a frieze of carved human heads. The Euphrasian Basilica in Poreč keeps 6th-century mosaics of gold and colour in its apse. The Church of St. Donatus in Zadar is a tall circular church of the 9th century built partly from fragments of the Roman forum it stands on. Mirogoj Cemetery in Zagreb is enclosed by long arcades topped with green domes, designed by Hermann Bollé, sheltering monuments among the trees.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Trogir Cathedral | Cathedral | |
| 2 | Šibenik Cathedral | Cathedral | ✓ |
| 3 | Euphrasian Basilica | Cathedral | ✓ |
| 4 | Church of St. Donatus | Church building | |
| 5 | Mirogoj Cemetery | Cemetery |
01 Trogir Cathedral
Trogirska katedrala
Croatia · 17.7 km from Split43.517° N 16.251° E
VitVit · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Cathedral of St Lawrence, popularly called St John's after John of Trogir, a bishop who died in 1111 and was venerated for his holy life, replaced an early Christian cathedral destroyed when Saracens sacked the town in 1123.
Did you know? The cathedral holds the gravestone of Mladen III Šubić of Bribir, a member of a powerful Croatian noble family, who died in 1348.
02 Šibenik Cathedral
Katedrala sv. Jakova u Šibeniku
Croatia · 1.6 km from Šibenik43.736° N 15.889° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by Huche from Pixabay The foundation stone was laid on 9 April 1431, and work continued until 1536, with consecration in 1555. The first plans came from Francesco di Giacomo, but the decisive figure was Juraj Dalmatinac (Giorgio da Sebenico), who led the works from 1441 to 1473, enlarging the design.
Did you know? When Šibenik fought Venice in 1409–1412, stone gathered for the cathedral was diverted to strengthen the city walls.
03 Euphrasian Basilica
Eufrazijeva bazilika
Croatia45.229° N 13.594° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Tiefkuehlfan · CC BY-SA 4.0 The apse is the reason to come. Against a gold ground, the Virgin and Child are enthroned beneath a hand reaching down from heaven, flanked by angels and local saints; Bishop Euphrasius himself holds a model of the church, and beside him stands his archdeacon Claudius with a small boy labelled as the archdeacon's son. It is considered the only surviving depiction of the Mother of God in the apse of an early Christian basilica in the West.
Did you know? Beneath the arch runs a row of 13 medallions: the Lamb of God surrounded by portraits of twelve female martyrs.
04 Church of St. Donatus
Crkva sv. Donata u Zadru
Croatia · 3.1 km from Zadar44.116° N 15.224° E
Pudelek (Marcin Szala) · CC BY-SA 3.0 The plan is circular, with an inner ring of piers and columns, a surrounding ambulatory, an upper gallery and three apses projecting to the east; the building is about 27 metres high and was once crowned by a dome. Scholars often compare it with the palace chapel of Charlemagne at Aachen and with San Vitale in Ravenna, the great round churches of the age. What makes St. Donatus unusual is how much of ancient Zadar is built into it.
Did you know? Tradition credits Donatus with bringing the relics of Saint Anastasia from Constantinople; they still lie in the neighbouring cathedral dedicated to her.
05 Mirogoj Cemetery
Mirogoj
Croatia · 2.3 km from Zagreb45.836° N 15.984° E
Image by GoranH from Pixabay Bollé's arcades are the great sight. Construction started in 1879, only three years after the first burials, and went on for decades; the result is a continuous covered gallery that wraps the burial ground, its walls lined with family tombs, bronze portraits, marble reliefs and mourning figures.
Did you know? The Serbian Orthodox chapel of Saints Peter and Paul was added inside the cemetery in 1891.
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 sacred places in Croatia?
- On our list, Trogir Cathedral ranks first, followed by Šibenik Cathedral and Euphrasian Basilica.
- Who built Šibenik Cathedral?
- Construction lasted from 1431 to 1535. Juraj Dalmatinac and later Niccolò di Giovanni Fiorentino led the work, joining Gothic and Renaissance forms in a building made entirely of stone.
- Why is the Euphrasian Basilica a UNESCO site?
- It is one of the best preserved early Byzantine church complexes, with its 6th-century basilica, atrium, baptistery and mosaics, built under Bishop Euphrasius.
- How many sacred places are on this list in Croatia?
- The list covers 5 sacred places.