The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Greece
10 places · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Greece are Parthenon, Meteora and Daphni Monastery. The list covers 10 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Last updated 14 October 2026.
Greece holds World Heritage on two levels at once. It is the birthplace of much of Western architecture, philosophy and drama, so its ancient sanctuaries and cities are recognised as foundations of a civilisation; and it is also the heartland of Byzantine Christianity, whose monasteries and churches preserve some of the finest mosaics and frescoes of the Middle Ages. Mountains, islands and sea tie both worlds to their landscape.
The Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens, built in the fifth century BC under Pericles and dedicated to Athena, is the most influential building of classical antiquity, its columns subtly curved to correct the eye. The island of Delos, the mythical birthplace of Apollo and Artemis, is covered almost entirely by the remains of its sanctuary and trading port, including the famous row of marble lions. In the Peloponnese, Mystras climbs a hillside near Sparta with the palaces and frescoed churches of the last flowering of Byzantine culture.
In Thessaly, the monasteries of Meteora sit on top of sheer pillars of rock, once reached only by ladders and nets drawn up by rope; Varlaam, founded in the sixteenth century, is one of the largest. The monastery of Hosios Loukas in Boeotia preserves an eleventh-century church whose interior shines with mosaics on a ground of gold, one of the high points of middle Byzantine art.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Parthenon | Ruins | ✓ |
| 2 | Meteora | Rock formation | ✓ |
| 3 | Daphni Monastery | Monastery | ✓ |
| 4 | Nea Moni of Chios | Monastery | ✓ |
| 5 | Mystras | Archaeological site | ✓ |
| 6 | Delos | Island | ✓ |
| 7 | Monastery of Saint John the Theologian | Monastery | ✓ |
| 8 | Temple of Apollo Epicurius in Bassae | Ruins | ✓ |
| 9 | Hosios Loukas | Monastery | ✓ |
| 10 | Varlaam monastery | Monastery | ✓ |
01 Parthenon
Παρθενώνας
Greece · 1.6 km from Athens37.972° N 23.727° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by nonbirinonko from Pixabay The Parthenon looks perfectly straight only because almost nothing about it actually is.
Did you know? On 26 September 1687 a Venetian mortar round hit gunpowder stored inside by the Ottoman garrison, and the blast killed about 300 people.
02 Meteora
Μετέωρα
Greece39.712° N 21.627° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
- UNESCO natural beauty
Image by shogun from Pixabay Monastic life came here before any monastery did. From around the 11th century, hermits climbed into natural fissures and caves high in these sandstone pillars using removable rope ladders — inaccessibility itself was the point, a way of withdrawing from the world that the rock simply handed them.
Did you know? The pillars are not volcanic but sandstone and conglomerate, laid down in a river delta and later uplifted and split by faults some 60 million years ago.
03 Daphni Monastery
Μονή Δαφνίου
Greece · 9 km from Piraeus38.013° N 23.636° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Sp!ros · CC BY-SA 4.0 Daphni Monastery stands in a pine wood in Chaidari, about 11 km north-west of central Athens, beside the old Sacred Way that ran to Eleusis. Its name comes from the laurel groves of a sanctuary of Apollo that once stood here; one Ionic column from that temple is still built into the church, while others were taken to London by Lord Elgin.
04 Nea Moni of Chios
Νέα Μονή Χίου
Greece · 7 km from Chios38.374° N 26.056° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
RomkeHoekstra · CC BY-SA 4.0 Nea Moni, the "New Monastery", sits on Provateio mountain in the interior of Chios, and it holds one of the three great sets of eleventh-century mosaics in Greece, alongside Hosios Loukas and Daphni. It was founded by the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachos and Empress Zoe.
05 Mystras
Μυστράς
Greece · 5.5 km from Sparti37.074° N 22.367° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by MemoryCatcher from Pixabay On a steep spur of Mount Taygetos above the plain of Sparta, a whole Byzantine city lies stacked up the hillside: churches with brick domes and painted interiors, the ruined Palace of the Despots, mansions, lanes and gates, all crowned by a castle on the summit.
Did you know? The protected World Heritage area covers about 54 hectares, set within a buffer zone of more than 1,200 hectares.
06 Delos
Δήλος
Greece · 30.5 km from Ermoupolis37.389° N 25.269° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by 1192864 from Pixabay 43 square kilometres — that is covered from shore to hilltop with the ruins of a whole ancient city. Greek myth made it the birthplace of the twins Apollo and Artemis, and for centuries it was one of the most sacred places of the Greek world.
Did you know? Remains of stone huts show that the island was inhabited as early as the third millennium BC.
07 Monastery of Saint John the Theologian
Μονή του Αγίου Ιωάννου του Θεολόγου
Greece37.309° N 26.548° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Valeria Casali · CC BY-SA 3.0 Seen from the sea, the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian looks less like a religious house than a castle: a mass of grey battlemented walls on the summit of Patmos, with the white houses of Chora wrapped around it. It was founded in 1088, when the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos granted the island to the monk Christodoulos, who fortified it heavily against pirates and Seljuk raids.
08 Temple of Apollo Epicurius in Bassae
Ναός Επικούριου Απόλλωνα
Greece37.430° N 21.900° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Jean Housen · CC BY-SA 4.0 On a bare limestone shoulder of Mount Kotilion, more than 1,100 metres up in the wild hills where ancient Arcadia met Messenia, stands one of the best-preserved temples of classical Greece. Its name, Bassai, means roughly a little vale among the rocks, and the setting is exactly that: grey stone, oak scrub and a long view over ridges towards the sea.
Did you know? Bassae became the first Greek site on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1986.
09 Hosios Loukas
Μονή Οσίου Λουκά Βοιωτίας
Greece38.395° N 22.746° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Panosmyr · CC BY-SA 4.0 Hosios Loukas is a walled monastery on the slopes of Mount Helicon in Boeotia, and one of the three places in Greece, with Daphni and Nea Moni on Chios, where the art of the Middle Byzantine period survives in its most complete form. It grew around the tomb of a local hermit, Luke of Steiris, who died in 953 and was remembered for a prophecy that the Byzantines would retake Crete.
Did you know? Luke's prophecy that an emperor named Romanos would retake Crete came true in 961, though the general who did it was Nikephoros Phokas, serving Romanos II.
10 Varlaam monastery
Μονή Βαρλαάμ
Greece39.725° N 21.630° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
- UNESCO natural beauty
Image by MichelleCoppiens from Pixabay Varlaam is the second largest of the Meteora monasteries and one of the four still inhabited by monks, perched on a sandstone and conglomerate pillar that rises 373 metres above the Pineios valley near Kalambaka. It takes its name from a hermit, Varlaam, who climbed the rock in the fourteenth century and built a small church and cells there.
Did you know? According to tradition, building materials for the main church were hauled up the rock for some 22 years, yet the church itself was raised in only 20 days.
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 World Heritage Sites in Greece?
- On our list, Parthenon ranks first, followed by Meteora and Daphni Monastery.
- How were the Meteora monasteries built?
- Monks reached the summits of the rock pillars with ladders, ropes and scaffolding, then hauled up building materials in nets and baskets. Until steps were cut into the rock in the twentieth century, visitors and supplies were raised the same way.
- When was the Parthenon built?
- The Parthenon was built between 447 and 432 BC under the leadership of Pericles, designed by the architects Iktinos and Kallikrates with sculpture overseen by Phidias. It was dedicated to Athena Parthenos, the patron goddess of Athens.
- Why is Mystras important?
- Mystras was the capital of the Byzantine Despotate of the Morea in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and a centre of late Byzantine learning and art. The last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, was crowned there in 1449.
- How many UNESCO World Heritage Sites are on this list in Greece?
- The list covers 10 UNESCO World Heritage Sites.