Religious Sites: Explore Temples, Churches, Mosques and Sacred Complexes
Explore more than 6,500 historic religious sites, including temples, cathedrals, monasteries, mosques, madrasas, synagogues and timber-built shrines. The collection spans Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Its standing interiors and extensive archaeological complexes include spaces for worship, religious teaching, processions and communal life, with some buildings retaining more than one religious phase.
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Jakobuskirche in Tübingen began as a Romanesque chapel around 1200 and became a hospital and parish church serving the Lower Town. Its surviving…
Michaeliskirche in Erfurt developed from a late twelfth-century church into a Gothic university church associated with Martin Luther, later becoming…
Pieve di San Giovanni Battista in Contignaco, near Salsomaggiore Terme, is a medieval parish church whose Romanesque structure preserves later…
Rott Abbey began as a late-eleventh-century Benedictine foundation and became known for its eighteenth-century Rococo church, which survives as the…
Built in 1598 in Pitigliano’s historic Jewish quarter, the Sinagoga di Pitigliano preserves later restorations, historic furnishings, inscriptions,…
Sokolica Monastery near Boletin is a Serbian Orthodox women’s monastery with a church probably built in the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Its…
The Baptistery of Butrint is a sixth-century Christian building adapted from a Roman bathing complex, known for its unusual circular plan and…
The Cathedral of the Nativity in Suzdal is a white-stone church with a thirteenth-century lower structure, a sixteenth-century upper section, and…
The Church of Saint Quentin in Tournai developed from a Romanesque building begun around 1200 into a church shaped by late-medieval rebuilding,…
Hervormde kerk is a medieval church in Lettelbert that was rebuilt after its nave collapsed in 1650 and later adapted for Reformed worship. Its…
The Saif ed-Din Bokharzi complex in Bukhara developed around the grave of a Khorasani Sufi sheikh and became a major Kubrawiya center, alongside the…
San Pietro Alli Marmi is a medieval basilica and monastic complex in Eboli, associated with Benedictine, Minim, and Capuchin communities and known…
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On this page10 sections
Explore by tradition
Browse these collections for religious sites associated with a particular tradition.
Temples, columned halls and inner sanctuaries
At Karnak in Egypt, successive gateways and courts lead through the precinct of Amun-Re. The Great Hypostyle Hall contains closely spaced rows of enormous sandstone columns shaped like papyrus plants. Taller columns along the centre carried a raised roof, with high-level openings admitting light above the lower side aisles.
The smaller Temple of Khonsu preserves another sequence of religious spaces within the complex. A columned court leads to an eight-column hall, a room for the divine barque and inner sanctuaries. The barque carried the god’s image during festivals; its dedicated chamber connected the temple’s enclosed ritual spaces with processions outside.
Cathedrals, vaults and radiating chapels
Amiens Cathedral in France rises around a high Gothic nave with rib vaults carried on clustered supports. Side aisles run beside the main space, while passages around the choir open into a ring of chapels. The different levels of arcades, galleries and windows remain clear from within the building.
The choir has a glazed upper gallery, bringing light into an area that is closed by solid walling in the nave. Large rose windows occupy the transept ends. These arrangements gave a single cathedral distinct spaces for the main liturgy, movement around the sanctuary and worship at subsidiary altars.
Madrasas, teaching rooms and courtyards
The Bou Inania Madrasa in Fez, Morocco, combines a prayer hall with classrooms and accommodation for students. Galleries surround a marble-paved courtyard containing a fountain, while small rooms occupy both the ground and upper levels. Separate corridors and stairs connect the residential areas with the main court.
Carved cedar, stucco and tile decoration are concentrated around entrances and the principal spaces. Founded in the fourteenth century under the Marinids, the complex shows how religious education required both formal teaching rooms and the everyday facilities of a residential institution.
Synagogues, mosques and religious reuse
Córdoba Synagogue in Spain occupies a small site within the old Jewish quarter. A courtyard and entrance hall lead into its prayer room, with a gallery above the entrance. Carved plasterwork and Hebrew inscriptions survive on the walls, preserving the decoration of a medieval place of worship within a densely built neighbourhood.
The city’s Mosque-Cathedral contains a much larger sequence of religious spaces. Repeated double-tiered arches supported the mosque’s roof on comparatively short columns, creating long views through the prayer hall. Christian chapels and a later central cathedral nave were inserted after the building’s conversion. The Islamic arcades and the later church architecture remain visible within the same complex.
Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines beside water
At Byōdō-in in Uji, Japan, the Phoenix Hall stands on an island in a pond. Its central Buddhist hall is flanked by wing corridors, with another corridor extending behind it. Built in 1053, the hall preserves the timber framing and broad projecting eaves of a building arranged around an image of Amida Buddha. The bronze phoenixes on the roof are replicas; the originals are kept separately.
Itsukushima Shrine, on Miyajima, uses a different relationship with water. Covered corridors link Shinto worship halls, purification spaces and subsidiary shrines over the shallow bay. A raised stage stands before the principal halls. High tide surrounds the supports, while low tide exposes the ground beneath them. Rebuilding and the repair of timber exposed to seawater have maintained the complex’s historic arrangement over successive centuries.
Explore the collection
Explore religious sites on the map or in the grid. Narrow the results by country, site type, civilization or era, with additional filters for popularity and rating. Select a map marker to view the site’s details and open its article, or open the article from its grid entry.