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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Built as part of Verona’s Roman forum, the Capitolium combined a temple to Rome’s principal gods with a surrounding portico and underground gallery.…
Founded in 1080 by Augustinian canons, Cassan Abbey became a regional religious centre before decline, eighteenth-century rebuilding, and its…
Built in 1826–1831, the cathedral is the central church of the Šabac Eparchy. Its history includes First World War occupation and damage, postwar…
Built in 1311 and painted in 1313, the cathedral is the principal church of Snetogorsky Monastery and preserves a rare cycle of early…
Begun under Bayezid I and completed under Mehmed I, the mosque was inaugurated in 1420. Its Seljuk-influenced design and later history of conversion,…
Founded as Lechnica Monastery in the 14th century, Červený Kláštor became a religious, cultural, and scholarly center before serving first the…
Champlieu developed from a Late Iron Age settlement into a Roman religious and civic complex, with a temple, theatre and baths. Its buried remains…
A medieval rock-cut shrine dedicated to St Mary, the chapel served pilgrims near Knaresborough Priory and later returned to Catholic worship.
Founded by Bishop Fructuosus as his tomb, the chapel belonged to a monastery that became the region’s principal religious center. Its Visigothic…
This Roman Catholic chapel near Nitrianska Blatnica is among Slovakia’s oldest surviving sacred buildings. Its disputed early medieval origins,…
The 11th-century Chapelle des Moines belonged to a Cluniac priory and preserves early-12th-century wall paintings regarded as major works of…
Built around a riverside votive pillar after a reported rescue in 1644, the Chiesa della Madonna del Pilone became a place of pilgrimage and later a…
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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.