The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Aqueducts in the World
7 places in 5 countries · updated 6 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful UNESCO-listed aqueducts in the world are Pont du Gard (France), Aqueduct of Segovia (Spain) and Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (United Kingdom). The list covers 7 UNESCO-listed aqueducts in 5 countries. Spain has the most, with 3. Last updated 6 October 2026.
An aqueduct is a water pipe made monumental. To keep water flowing on a gentle, steady gradient across valleys, Roman engineers raised channels on tiers of arches, and the results proved so durable that several still stand where they were built. UNESCO listing follows that union of utility and permanence: the aqueducts recognised here are landmarks of hydraulic engineering, from the Roman provinces of Gaul and Hispania to the canals of industrial Britain and the highlands of colonial Mexico.
The Pont du Gard crosses the Gardon in three stacked tiers of arches, the tallest of all Roman aqueduct bridges. Segovia's aqueduct strides through the town on granite blocks fitted without mortar, and near Tarragona the Les Ferreres Aqueduct, known as the Devil's Bridge, keeps two rows of Roman arches in a wooded valley. At Mérida the Acueducto de los Milagros survives as tall piers of granite banded with brick, named for the awe it inspired in later generations.
Later centuries built on the Roman idea. Luigi Vanvitelli's Caroline Aqueduct carried water to the royal palace and gardens of Caserta, crossing a valley in three tiers of arches. In Mexico the Franciscan friar Francisco de Tembleque spent years raising the Aqueduct of Padre Tembleque, whose main arcade strides across a ravine on 67 arches, and in Wales Thomas Telford's Pontcysyllte Aqueduct sent canal boats across the Dee valley in a cast-iron trough.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pont du Gard | Aqueduct | France | ✓ |
| 2 | Aqueduct of Segovia | Aqueduct | Spain | ✓ |
| 3 | Pontcysyllte Aqueduct | Aqueduct | United Kingdom | ✓ |
| 4 | Les Ferreres Aqueduct | Aqueduct | Spain | ✓ |
| 5 | Caroline Aqueduct (Aqueduct of Vanvitelli) | Aqueduct | Italy | ✓ |
| 6 | Acueducto de los Milagros | Aqueduct | Spain | ✓ |
| 7 | Aqueduct of Padre Tembleque | Aqueduct | Mexico | ✓ |
01 Pont du Gard
France · 19.8 km from Nîmes43.947° N 4.535° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by Sloopng from Pixabay In the 1st century AD the Roman colony of Nemausus, today's Nîmes, needed water and found it at a spring near Uzès. The two towns are only about 20 km apart, but hills covered in dense garrigue lay between them, so the engineers took a winding route of some 50 km, mostly underground, with a total drop of just 17 metres. 8 metres high. 5 cm along its length.
Did you know? The bridge contains an estimated 50,400 tonnes of limestone, a volume of about 21,000 cubic metres.
02 Aqueduct of Segovia
Acueducto de Segovia
Spain40.948° N 4.118° W
- UNESCO World Heritage
Bernard Gagnon · CC BY-SA 3.0 The aqueduct does not stand at the edge of Segovia; it walks straight through it. 5 m above the street, and people pass beneath arches that have carried water, or at least the channel for it, since the Roman period. The whole elevated bridge runs for roughly 728 m and has 167 arches, and the blocks are laid entirely without mortar, held in place by their own weight and careful cutting.
Did you know? The aqueduct was declared a national monument of Spain in 1884, a century before its UNESCO listing.
03 Pontcysyllte Aqueduct
United Kingdom · 27.1 km from Chester52.970° N 3.088° W
- UNESCO World Heritage
Adrian Pingstone · Public domain 7 metres deep, and hung it 38 metres above the River Dee on eighteen hollow stone piers that taper toward the top to shed weight. He'd tested the idea on a smaller scale at Longdon-on-Tern first, then bet the Ellesmere Canal Company's money on it here.
Did you know? The mortar of the stone piers was mixed from lime, water and ox blood.
04 Les Ferreres Aqueduct
Acueducto de les Ferreres
Spain · 2.8 km from Tarragona41.146° N 1.244° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Carole Raddato · CC BY-SA 2.0 The Ferreres Aqueduct, better known locally as the Pont del Diable, the Devil's Bridge, is the most spectacular surviving piece of the water supply that fed Roman Tarraco, the capital of the province of Hispania Tarraconensis and today's Tarragona. It carried water taken from the Francolà river about 15 km north of the city, and it probably dates from the reign of Augustus.
Did you know? The aqueduct was declared a national historic-artistic monument in 1905, long before its World Heritage listing.
05 Caroline Aqueduct (Aqueduct of Vanvitelli)
Acquedotto Carolino
Italy · 5.4 km from Caserta41.059° N 14.402° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
F. Patturelli · Public domain The Aqueduct of Vanvitelli, known in Italy as the Acquedotto Carolino, was built to bring water to the Bourbon palace at Caserta, and its showpiece is a bridge of tufa that strides across the Valle di Maddaloni on three tiers of arches. 8 metres at its highest point. It was modelled on the aqueducts of ancient Rome, and when it was finished it was the longest bridge in Europe.
Did you know? In 1754 King Charles raised Airola to the rank of city as formal compensation for tapping the springs on its land.
06 Acueducto de los Milagros
Spain · 1.6 km from Mérida38.924° N 6.348° W
- UNESCO World Heritage
doalex · CC BY-SA 3.0 On the northwest side of Mérida, a line of tall pillars striped in grey granite and red brick crosses the valley of the little Albarregas River, carrying nothing now but arches and sky. This is what remains of one of the aqueducts of Emerita Augusta, founded under Augustus as capital of the Roman province of Lusitania.
Did you know? The aqueduct was declared a Spanish national monument on 13 December 1912, more than eighty years before its UNESCO listing.
07 Aqueduct of Padre Tembleque
Acueducto del Padre Tembleque
Mexico · 30.9 km from Pachuca19.836° N 98.662° W
- UNESCO World Heritage
Jay Galvin from Pleasanton, CA, USA · CC BY 2.0 On the dry plateau north-east of Mexico City, a line of tall arches striding across the Papalote ravine near the village of Santiago Tepeyahualco is the visible crown of the most important hydraulic work of sixteenth-century New Spain. The Aqueduct of Padre Tembleque carried spring water from the slopes of the Tecajete volcano to the Indigenous towns of Otumba and Zempoala and the villages along the way.
Did you know? UNESCO describes the main arcade as the highest single-level arcade ever built in an aqueduct from Roman times to the mid-16th century.
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 UNESCO-listed aqueducts in the world?
- On our list, Pont du Gard (France) ranks first, followed by Aqueduct of Segovia (Spain) and Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (United Kingdom).
- Which country has the most UNESCO-listed aqueducts in the world?
- In our collection, the most come from Spain (3), France (1) and Italy (1).
- How did Roman aqueducts move water?
- By gravity alone. The channel descended at a slight, carefully surveyed gradient over many kilometres, and arched bridges such as the Pont du Gard carried it across valleys at the right level.
- What is the highest canal aqueduct in the world?
- The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in Wales, completed in 1805, carries the Llangollen Canal about 38 metres above the River Dee. It is the highest canal aqueduct in the world and the longest aqueduct in Great Britain.
- Was the Aqueduct of Segovia built without mortar?
- Yes. Its granite blocks are held in place by their own weight and the balance of the arches, with no mortar between them.
- How many UNESCO-listed aqueducts are on this list in the world?
- The list covers 7 UNESCO-listed aqueducts in 5 countries. Spain has the most, with 3.