The Most Remarkable UNESCO-Listed Archaeological Sites in Iran
6 places · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most remarkable UNESCO-listed archaeological sites in Iran are Pasargadae, Persepolis and Takht-e Soleyman. The list covers 6 UNESCO-listed archaeological sites. Last updated 14 October 2026.
Iran has 6 of the 114 UNESCO-listed archaeological sites in our collection. Ranked by how they look, the list opens with Pasargadae, Persepolis and Takht-e Soleyman.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pasargadae | Archaeological site | ✓ |
| 2 | Persepolis | Archaeological site | ✓ |
| 3 | Takht-e Soleyman | Archaeological site | ✓ |
| 4 | Behistun inscription | Archaeological site | ✓ |
| 5 | Bishapur | Archaeological site | ✓ |
| 6 | Chogha Zanbil | Archaeological site | ✓ |
01 Pasargadae
Iran30.200° N 53.179° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by pv746 from Pixabay Pasargadae is where the Persian Empire began to think of itself in stone. Cyrus the Great founded it in the 6th century BC, close to the field where he defeated the Median king Astyages in 550 BC, and named it after his own clan.
02 Persepolis
Iran · 16.2 km from Marvdasht29.935° N 52.890° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
SEYED MOHAMAD AHMADI · CC BY-SA 4.0 Persepolis, known in Persian as Takht-e Jamshid, the Throne of Jamshid, was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Darius I began it around 515 BC on a vast terrace of grey limestone, looking out over the plain of Marvdasht in Fars. Xerxes I and Artaxerxes I extended it, and building went on until the empire fell.
Did you know? Plutarch claimed Alexander needed some 20,000 mules and 5,000 camels to carry away the treasure of Persepolis.
03 Takht-e Soleyman
Iran36.605° N 47.234° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
MahmoudReza Nourani · CC BY-SA 4.0 Takht-e Soleyman, the "Throne of Solomon", is a walled royal sanctuary built around a small lake that wells up from the top of a hill in the uplands of north-western Iran. The hill itself was made by the water: a mineral-rich spring has spilled over its rim for ages, laying down limestone as it flows.
Did you know? Adur Gushnasp is the only one of the three Great Fires of Sasanian Iran whose temple building has actually been found by archaeologists.
04 Behistun inscription
Iran · 34.8 km from Kermanshah34.390° N 47.436° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Patrick C, known as dynamomosquito on Flickr, and Pentocelo on this project · CC BY-SA 2.0 High on a limestone cliff above the old road between Babylon and Ecbatana, Darius the Great had his own story carved in three languages. The Behistun inscription is about 15 metres high and 25 metres wide and sits roughly 100 metres above the ground, far out of reach — which is exactly why it survived.
Did you know? Rainwater has dissolved parts of the inscribed limestone while laying down fresh mineral crusts over other lines of text.
05 Bishapur
Iran29.778° N 51.571° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Herbert karim masihi · CC BY-SA 4.0 Bishapur is the city a Persian king of kings built to celebrate beating Rome. Shapur I, the second ruler of the Sasanian dynasty, defeated three Roman emperors in his long reign, and the last of them, Valerian, was taken prisoner in 260.
Did you know? Bishapur is part of the Sassanid Archaeological Landscape of Fars Region, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2018.
06 Chogha Zanbil
Iran32.008° N 48.521° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada · CC BY-SA 2.0 Rising from the flat plain of Khuzestan, the ziggurat of Chogha Zanbil is one of the very few stepped temple towers of ancient Mesopotamia and Elam to survive in recognisable shape. It was raised around 1250 BC by the Elamite king Untash-Napirisha, chiefly in honour of Inshushinak, the protector god of Susa, and stood at the centre of a new religious city the king named Dur Untash, "the town of Untash".
Did you know? Every eleventh course of bricks in the ziggurat was inscribed with cuneiform text naming the king and the gods.
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 remarkable UNESCO-listed archaeological sites in Iran?
- On our list, Pasargadae ranks first, followed by Persepolis and Takht-e Soleyman.
- How many UNESCO-listed archaeological sites are on this list in Iran?
- The list covers 6 UNESCO-listed archaeological sites.