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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Greyfriars was a major Franciscan friary and intellectual centre by Newgate in the City of London, active from 1225 until its dissolution in 1538.…
Holy Cross Church, Woodchurch, is a medieval parish church whose fabric ranges from the twelfth century to twentieth-century additions. Its surviving…
Kinoshita Hakusan Shrine stands within the precincts of Mutsu Kokubunji in Sendai. Its history is linked to Hakusan worship, the Kokubun clan,…
Kloster Drolshagen was a Cistercian women’s abbey founded in the thirteenth century. Its history includes noble patronage, extensive landholdings,…
Liebfrauenmünster is the Roman Catholic parish church of Wolframs-Eschenbach, a medieval church shaped by Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque, and Neo-Gothic…
The Lutheran church in Bazna developed from a medieval predecessor into a Gothic hall church enclosed within a fortified complex. Its surviving…
The Lutheran church in Șura Mare, Romania, began as a thirteenth-century Romanesque basilica and was transformed through medieval reconstruction into…
Built by Transylvanian Saxons between the late thirteenth century and the early sixteenth century, the church in Tărpiu preserves a medieval…
The Lutheran church in Vărd, Romania, began as a thirteenth-century Romanesque church dedicated to Saint Mary and later gained a defensive tower and…
The Lutheran fortified church in Velț, Romania, developed around a Late Gothic hall church and an enclosing defensive system. Its surviving features…
Maria Himmelfahrt in Zwettl is a medieval parish church whose late-Romanesque core was expanded in the Gothic period and reshaped with Baroque and…
Mary Magdalene Church in Kalwa is a Roman Catholic parish church founded in the early fourteenth century, later expanded and furnished in the Rococo…
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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.