The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Buildings in Asia
6 places in 4 countries · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful UNESCO-listed buildings in Asia are Terracotta Army (People's Republic of China), Hagia Sophia (Turkey) and Forbidden City (People's Republic of China). The list covers 6 UNESCO-listed buildings in 4 countries. The People's Republic of China has the most, with 2. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Great buildings tell us how empires saw themselves, and the UNESCO-listed buildings here come from many of them: the first emperor of China, the Byzantines and Ottomans in Istanbul, the Ming dynasty in Beijing, Victorian Bombay and Peter the Great's new capital on the Neva. Each one is a statement of power or faith made in its own materials, from fired clay and timber to marble, mosaic and Gothic stone, which makes this one of the most varied groups of architecture anywhere.
The Terracotta Army near Xi'an guards the tomb of Qin Shi Huang with ranks of life-size clay soldiers, each with an individual face. In Beijing, the Forbidden City, built in the early 15th century, arranges halls with golden-yellow roofs along a strict north-south axis. Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, completed in 537, spans its nave with one of the great domes of history, and nearby Topkapı Palace, residence of the Ottoman sultans for centuries, unfolds as a sequence of courtyards, pavilions and the tiled rooms of the Harem. Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, a railway station completed in 1888, fuses Victorian Gothic with Indian palace architecture. The Peter and Paul Fortress, founded in 1703, marks the birth of St Petersburg, its cathedral spire rising over the tombs of the Romanov emperors.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Terracotta Army | Archaeological site | People's Republic of China | ✓ |
| 2 | Hagia Sophia | Mosque | Turkey | ✓ |
| 3 | Forbidden City | Palace | People's Republic of China | ✓ |
| 4 | Topkapı Palace | Palace | Turkey | ✓ |
| 5 | Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus | Railway station | India | ✓ |
| 6 | Peter and Paul Fortress | Fort | Russia | ✓ |
01 Terracotta Army
People's Republic of China · 24.5 km from Weinan34.385° N 109.273° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by artemtation from Pixabay The farmer who found the Terracotta Army wasn't looking for it. In March 1974, Yang Zhifa, his five brothers and a neighbor were digging a well during a drought, hoping only for water, when at about three metres down they hit a layer of charcoal and reddened soil, and past four metres one of them pulled up a life-sized pottery head.
Did you know? The paint on the figures is so fragile that, once exposed to Xi'an's dry air, its lacquer base can curl within seconds and flake off in minutes.
02 Hagia Sophia
Ayasofya
Turkey · 1.1 km from Istanbul41.008° N 28.980° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by edibejko from Pixabay The building that stands today was put up in barely five years. In January 532 the Nika riots burned down the previous church on the site, and within weeks Emperor Justinian I had started a far more ambitious replacement, designed by two scholars rather than master masons: Anthemius of Tralles, a mathematician, and Isidore of Miletus, a geometer. It was dedicated in 537.
Did you know? Envoys of the Kievan Rus' prince reported that inside they could not tell whether they were in heaven or on earth, a verdict tied to Rus' conversion to Orthodoxy.
03 Forbidden City
People's Republic of China · 1.6 km from Beijing39.916° N 116.391° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
N509FZ · CC BY-SA 4.0 For almost five centuries the Forbidden City was the physical centre of the Chinese state. The Yongle Emperor of the Ming dynasty began it in 1406, after moving the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, and the complex was ready by 1420; from then until 1912 twenty-four emperors, fourteen Ming and ten Qing, lived and ruled here.
Did you know? The legend of 9,999 rooms is not borne out by surveys, which count about 8,886 bays of rooms.
04 Topkapı Palace
Turkey · 1 km from Istanbul41.013° N 28.984° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by falco from Pixabay For almost four centuries the Ottoman Empire was governed from a headland at the very tip of old Istanbul. Mehmed II began Topkapı Palace in 1459, a few years after taking Constantinople, on Seraglio Point, where the Golden Horn opens into the Bosphorus and both meet the Sea of Marmara.
Did you know? The palace stands on the site of the acropolis of ancient Byzantion, and parts of its outer walls date back to Byzantine times.
05 Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus
India · 14.9 km from Mumbai18.940° N 72.835° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Rangan Datta Wiki · CC BY-SA 4.0 The station was designed by British architect Frederick William Stevens and built between 1878 and 1888, in a High Victorian Gothic style modelled loosely on late medieval Italian buildings — but Stevens didn't stop at importing a European style wholesale.
Did you know? It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004, and the station was a filming location for the Jai Ho dance sequence of Slumdog Millionaire.
06 Peter and Paul Fortress
Russia · 1 km from Saint Petersburg59.950° N 30.317° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by OlgaSadrova from Pixabay Saint Petersburg began here. On 27 May 1703 (16 May Old Style) Peter the Great founded a fortress on Hare Island on the Neva, and the city counts its birthday from that day. The earthen defences were soon replaced in stone to designs by the Swiss-Italian architect Domenico Trezzini, and work went on from 1706 to 1740.
Did you know? Peter the Great's own son, Tsarevich Alexei, was imprisoned in the fortress in 1718 and died there that year.
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 buildings in Asia?
- On our list, Terracotta Army (People's Republic of China) ranks first, followed by Hagia Sophia (Turkey) and Forbidden City (People's Republic of China).
- Which country has the most UNESCO-listed buildings in Asia?
- In our collection, the most come from the People's Republic of China (2), Turkey (2) and India (1).
- Why is it called the Forbidden City?
- For nearly five centuries it was the palace of the Ming and Qing emperors, and ordinary people could not enter without permission. Since 1925 it has housed the Palace Museum.
- Who designed Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus?
- The British architect Frederick William Stevens designed the station, originally named Victoria Terminus, which was completed in 1888 and combines Gothic Revival with traditional Indian elements.
- Who is buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral?
- The cathedral inside the fortress is the burial place of almost all Russian emperors and empresses from Peter the Great onwards.
- How many UNESCO-listed buildings are on this list in Asia?
- The list covers 6 UNESCO-listed buildings in 4 countries. The People's Republic of China has the most, with 2.