The Most Beautiful Stupas in Myanmar
5 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful stupas in Myanmar are Shwedagon Pagoda, Kuthodaw Pagoda and Kyaiktiyo Pagoda. The list covers 5 stupas. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Myanmar is a land of gilded stupas, called pagodas or zedi locally. Theravada Buddhism made building them one of the highest acts of merit, and for centuries kings and villagers alike raised them on hilltops and riverbanks, covering the most revered in gold leaf offered by pilgrims. They range from single golden spires to forests of smaller stupas clustered around a shrine.
The Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, gilded from base to tip and crowned by a jewelled finial, is said to enshrine hairs of the Buddha. Mandalay's Kuthodaw Pagoda is surrounded by 729 small shrines, each housing a marble slab inscribed with part of the Buddhist scriptures. Kyaiktiyo, the Golden Rock, is a small stupa set on a gilded boulder balanced on the edge of a cliff. Mingun Pahtodawgyi, begun by King Bodawpaya to be the largest stupa in the world, was never finished and stands cracked by an earthquake of 1839. The Kakku Pagodas in Shan State are a field of more than two thousand stupas, many topped with tinkling bells.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shwedagon Pagoda | Stupa | |
| 2 | Kuthodaw Pagoda | Stupa | |
| 3 | Kyaiktiyo Pagoda | Stupa | |
| 4 | Mingun Pahtodawgyi | Stupa | |
| 5 | Kakku Pagodas | Stupa |
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 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.
03 Kyaiktiyo Pagoda
Myanmar17.484° N 97.098° E
Image by peteranta from Pixabay Pilgrims come from all over the country, and the atmosphere at the top is devotional rather than touristic. Visitors go barefoot on the upper platform, as at every Burmese pagoda. Men cross a short bridge to press squares of gold leaf onto the rock; women are not permitted to touch it and pray from the terrace. The main season runs from November to March, and candles, chanting and meditation continue through the night. On the full moon of the month of Tabaung, in March, the platform is lit with tens of thousands of candles. The rock changes colour through the day, and sunrise and sunset are the times to see it; in the rainy season it may be only a dark shape in the cloud.
Did you know? Leopards, serows and red gorals are among the key mammals living in the forests below the Golden Rock.
04 Mingun Pahtodawgyi
Myanmar · 11.1 km from Mandalay22.051° N 96.017° E
Movingsaletoday, Rich Torres, Burlingame, California, USA · CC BY-SA 4.0 To go with his stupa, Bodawpaya also had a giant bronze bell cast between 1808 and 1810. The Mingun Bell weighs about 90 tonnes, or 55,555 viss in the traditional Burmese unit, a number remembered through a mnemonic phrase painted on its surface. It was knocked from its supports by the same earthquake of 1839 and rehung in 1896 by the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company. It remained the heaviest ringing bell in the world until 2000 and has no clapper; it is sounded by striking the rim from outside. A small shrine with a Buddha image is still kept inside the stupa, so the site remains a place of worship as well as a ruin.
Did you know? In each word of the mnemonic recording the bell’s weight, the consonants stand for the number 5 in Burmese numerology, spelling out 55,555 viss.
05 Kakku Pagodas
Myanmar · 38.7 km from Taunggyi20.445° N 97.139° E
Image by MarlyneArt from Pixabay Kakku is the sacred place of the Pa-O, one of the largest ethnic groups of Shan State, who built most of the stupas. Each year the Pa-O hold the pagoda festival on the full-moon day of Tabaung, the last month of the Burmese calendar, which falls around March, when pilgrims gather from the surrounding villages. The site lies in the uplands south of Taunggyi, the capital of Shan State, in the same region as Inle Lake.
Did you know? The stupas are built of brick coated in stucco, and many are crowned with a hti, the tiered umbrella-shaped finial of Burmese pagodas.
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 stupas in Myanmar?
- On our list, Shwedagon Pagoda ranks first, followed by Kuthodaw Pagoda and Kyaiktiyo Pagoda.
- What is the Golden Rock?
- Kyaiktiyo is a granite boulder covered in gold leaf that seems to balance on the edge of a cliff in Mon State, with a small stupa on top. Legend says it is held in place by a hair of the Buddha.
- Why is Kuthodaw Pagoda called the world's largest book?
- Its 729 marble slabs, commissioned by King Mindon in the 19th century, are inscribed with the whole Tipitaka, the Theravada Buddhist canon.
- Why was Mingun Pahtodawgyi never completed?
- Construction stopped after the death of King Bodawpaya in 1819, leaving only the massive brick base; an earthquake in 1839 split it with deep cracks.
- How many stupas are on this list in Myanmar?
- The list covers 5 stupas.