The Most Remarkable Planetariums in the World
3 places in 3 countries · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most remarkable planetariums in the world are Rose Center for Earth and Space (United States), L'Hemisfèric (Spain) and Shanghai Astronomy Museum (People's Republic of China). The list covers 3 planetariums in 3 countries. The People's Republic of China has the most, with 1. Last updated 13 October 2026.
A planetarium is a building made to contain the sky. Its central element is a dome onto which stars, planets and the motion of the heavens are projected, and the most memorable planetariums turn that hidden dome into the architecture itself: a sphere suspended in glass, an eye resting on water, a building shaped by orbits. They sit where science museum and monument meet, and their form is often the first thing that explains what happens inside.
The Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York, opened in 2000, places the Hayden Planetarium inside a great sphere set within a glass cube, so that the dome is visible from the street. L'Hemisfèric in Valencia, by Santiago Calatrava, is shaped like an eye whose lid opens and closes over a reflecting pool in the City of Arts and Sciences. The Shanghai Astronomy Museum, designed by Ennead Architects, uses curving forms inspired by orbital motion, including an inverted dome open to the sky and a sphere for the planetarium theatre.
The planetariums here are chosen for how they look and ordered by beauty. Each has its own text, a photograph with its author credited and a place on the map, and the section can also be explored country by country.
01 Rose Center for Earth and Space
United States · 6.9 km from New York City40.782° N 73.973° W
ESA/Hubble, AMNH · CC BY 4.0 The Rose Center for Earth and Space is the part of New York's American Museum of Natural History that turns the cosmos into architecture. Designed by James Polshek and Todd Schliemann of the Polshek Partnership and opened in February 2000, it is a six-storey glass cube on the north side of the museum, and inside it a white sphere 87 feet across seems to hang in the air. After dark, lit from within and seen from West 81st Street, the whole composition reads like a planet held in a display case.
Did you know? The great sphere appears to float inside its glass cube, but it is actually carried on hidden trusswork; architect James Polshek called the building a cosmic cathedral.
02 L'Hemisfèric
Spain · 5.3 km from Valencia39.457° N 0.354° W
Diliff · CC BY 2.5 Valencia moved its river after a catastrophic flood in 1957 and turned the dry bed of the Turia into a long sunken park that curls around the old town. At its southeastern end, Santiago Calatrava built the City of Arts and Sciences, and L'Hemisfèric was its first building, opened on 16 April 1998. Calatrava shaped it as a giant eye — the "eye of knowledge" — and it is the image most people now associate with modern Valencia.
Did you know? Two people standing at opposite pillars inside the eye can talk to each other quietly, thanks to the way the curved shell carries sound.
03 Shanghai Astronomy Museum
People's Republic of China30.915° N 121.923° E
Brookqi · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Shanghai Astronomy Museum was designed on a single principle: nothing in it should be a straight line or a right angle. Its architect, Thomas J. Wong of the New York practice Ennead Architects, took his cue from the three-body problem, the classic puzzle of physics in which several masses pull on one another in looping, never-quite-repeating paths. The result, a branch of the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum that opened in July 2021, sweeps across its site in long curves like orbits drawn in concrete and glass. With some 38,000 square metres of floor space, it is described as the largest museum in the world devoted solely to astronomy.
Did you know? The museum's collection holds 97 meteorites weighing 469 kilograms in total, gathered from more than 40 countries and spanning 37 meteorite groups.
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
- How does a planetarium work?
- A planetarium projects images of the night sky onto the inside of a dome above the audience. Early projectors were optical-mechanical star machines; modern ones also use digital full-dome video.
- What is the most remarkable planetarium in the world?
- On our list, Rose Center for Earth and Space (United States) ranks first, followed by L'Hemisfèric (Spain) and Shanghai Astronomy Museum (People's Republic of China).
- Who designed L'Hemisfèric in Valencia?
- L'Hemisfèric was designed by Santiago Calatrava as part of Valencia's City of Arts and Sciences; its form evokes an eye, with the planetarium dome as the pupil.
- Which country has the most planetariums?
- In our collection, the most come from the People's Republic of China (1), Spain (1) and the United States (1).
- How many planetariums are on this list in the world?
- The list covers 3 planetariums in 3 countries. The People's Republic of China has the most, with 1.