Buildings
Yerevan Cascade
Yerevan
A giant stairway of white limestone climbing a hill in the city centre, with fountains, modern sculptures (including works by Botero) and the Cafesji…
Buildings
Buildings
Sydney Opera House
Sydney, New South Wales
Jørn Utzon's masterpiece, with its white sail-shaped shells on Bennelong Point in Sydney Harbour, opened in 1973, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Buildings
Melk Abbey and the Wachau Valley
Melk, Lower Austria
A magnificent baroque Benedictine abbey on a rock above the Danube, with a gilded church and a stunning library.
Buildings
Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna
Hietzing, Vienna
The Habsburgs' 1,441-room summer palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, where Empress Maria Theresa, Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth (Sisi)…
Buildings
St Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna
Vienna
Vienna's Gothic cathedral, the symbol of the city, with a roof of coloured glazed tiles in a zigzag pattern and the eagles of the Habsburgs, and a 13…
Buildings
Independence Avenue and Victory Square, Minsk
Minsk, Minsk City
Minsk was almost completely destroyed in WWII and rebuilt in grand Stalinist style, with Independence Avenue as its showpiece, a long boulevard of mo…
Buildings
Belfry of Bruges and the Markt
Brugge, West Flanders
The 83 m medieval belfry towers over the Markt, the main square of Bruges, lined with gabled guild houses and café terraces.
Buildings
Atomium, Brussels
Brussels, Brussels-Capital
A giant model of an iron crystal, magnified 165 billion times, built for the 1958 World's Fair.
Buildings
Cathedral of Our Lady, Antwerp
Antwerp
The largest Gothic church in the Low Countries, with a 123 m spire towering over Antwerp's old town.
Buildings
Punakha Dzong
Punākha, Punakha
Probably the most beautiful dzong (fortress-monastery) in Bhutan, built in 1637 at the meeting of two rivers, the Pho Chhu and the Mo Chhu.
Buildings
Tiger's Nest Monastery (Paro Taktsang)
Paro
Bhutan's most famous sight: a monastery clinging to a cliff 900 m above the Paro valley, where Guru Rinpoche is said to have arrived on the back of a…
Buildings
Brasília modernist architecture
Brasília, Distrito Federal
Brazil's planned capital, built in the late 1950s, with buildings by Oscar Niemeyer: the crown-shaped Cathedral, the National Congress and the Paláci…
Buildings
Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque, Brunei
Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei-Muara
A gleaming mosque with a golden dome in the capital, Bandar Seri Begawan, built in 1958 beside an artificial lagoon with a replica royal barge.
Buildings
Rila Monastery
Rila, Kyustendil
Bulgaria's most famous monastery and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, founded in the 10th century by the hermit St Ivan of Rila and rebuilt after a fire…
Buildings
Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Sofia
Sofia, Sofia City
One of the largest Orthodox cathedrals in the world, with gold domes, built in memory of the Russian soldiers who died freeing Bulgaria from Ottoman …
Buildings
Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh
The home of the King of Cambodia, with golden-roofed throne halls by the river.
Buildings
CN Tower, Toronto
Toronto, Ontario
A 553 m tower, the tallest free-standing structure in the Western Hemisphere until 2009, with a glass floor and the EdgeWalk, where you walk around t…
Buildings
Parliament Hill, Ottawa
Ottawa, Ontario
The Gothic Revival home of Canada's Parliament, above the Ottawa River.
Buildings
Forbidden City (Palace Museum), Beijing
Beijing
The vast imperial palace of the Ming and Qing emperors, home to 24 emperors from 1420 to 1912, with nearly a thousand buildings inside its moat and r…
Buildings
Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá
Zipaquirá, Cundinamarca
An underground cathedral carved inside a salt mine, 180 m below ground, with the Stations of the Cross and a vast nave lit in changing colours.
Buildings
Frederiksborg Castle
Hillerød, Capital Region of Denmark
The largest Renaissance castle in Scandinavia, built on three islands in a lake at Hillerød by King Christian IV.
Buildings
Temppeliaukio Rock Church, Helsinki
Helsinki, Uusimaa
A church carved directly into solid rock, opened in 1969, with walls of raw stone and a copper dome lit by a ring of skylights.
Buildings
Amiens Cathedral
Amiens, Somme
The largest Gothic cathedral in France, built in the 13th century, with a nave so vast that two Notre-Dames of Paris would fit inside.
Buildings
Bourges Cathedral
Bourges, Cher
A World Heritage Gothic cathedral built around 1200, unusual for having no transept, so its five-aisled nave rises in one great sweep of light.
Buildings
Chartres Cathedral
Chartres, Eure-et-Loir
One of the most perfect Gothic cathedrals, built mostly between 1194 and 1220 and keeping almost all its original stained glass, famous for its deep …
Buildings
Eiffel Tower, Paris
Paris
Built for the 1889 World's Fair, the 330 m tower has three levels open to visitors.
Buildings
Notre-Dame de Paris
Paris
The great Gothic cathedral on the Île de la Cité, begun in 1163 and reopened in December 2024 after the restoration that followed the fire of 2019.
Buildings
Reims Cathedral and the champagne houses
Reims, Marne
The Gothic cathedral where French kings were crowned for centuries, with more than 2,300 statues on its façade, including the famous 'Smiling Angel',…
Buildings
Cologne Cathedral
Altstadt Nord, North Rhine-Westphalia
One of the greatest Gothic cathedrals in the world, begun in 1248 and finished only in 1880.
Buildings
Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg
Hamburg-Mitte, Hamburg
Hamburg's concert hall, opened in 2017: a glass wave-like structure built on top of an old brick warehouse at the tip of the HafenCity docks.
Buildings
Frauenkirche, Dresden
Dresden, Saxony
Dresden's great baroque church, with its stone dome, collapsed after the bombing of the city in February 1945 and lay as a pile of rubble for nearly …
Buildings
Reichstag dome, Berlin
Tiergarten, Berlin
The home of the German parliament, the Bundestag, crowned by a glass dome designed by Norman Foster when the building was restored in 1999.
Buildings
Aachen Cathedral
Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia
The first German site on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
Buildings
Panagia Ekatontapiliani, Parikia
Páros, South Aegean
The 'Church of a Hundred Doors', one of the oldest and best-preserved Byzantine churches in Greece, founded in the 4th century, reputedly by St Helen…
Buildings
Hungarian Parliament Building, Budapest
Budapest
A vast neo-Gothic building on the bank of the Danube, completed in 1904, with 691 rooms and a great central dome, the symbol of Budapest.
Buildings
Dohány Street Synagogue, Budapest
Erzsébetváros, Budapest
The largest synagogue in Europe, built in the 1850s in a Moorish Revival style, with twin onion-domed towers.
Buildings
Pannonhalma Archabbey
Pannonhalma, Győr-Moson-Sopron County
A Benedictine monastery founded in 996, a year before Hungary became a Christian kingdom, on a hill overlooking the countryside of western Hungary.
Buildings
Hallgrímskirkja, Reykjavík
Reykjavík
Reykjavík's landmark church, 74 m high, with a concrete façade inspired by the basalt columns formed by lava.
Buildings
City Palace and Lake Pichola, Udaipur
Udaipur, Rajasthan
Udaipur, the 'City of Lakes', is built around Lake Pichola, with the huge City Palace rising from its shore and the Lake Palace hotel floating in the…
Buildings
Tsuglagkhang Complex, McLeod Ganj
Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh
The main temple of the Tibetan community in exile, next to the residence of the Dalai Lama, in McLeod Ganj above Dharamsala.
Buildings
Hawa Mahal and City Palace, Jaipur
Jaipur, Rajasthan
The Hawa Mahal, 'Palace of Winds', is a five-storey pink sandstone façade honeycombed with 953 small windows, built in 1799 so royal women could watc…
Buildings
Mysore Palace
Mysuru, Karnataka
The opulent palace of the Wadiyar maharajas, built in 1912 in Indo-Saracenic style, with stained glass, mosaics and carved doors.
Buildings
Rumtek Monastery, Sikkim
Gangtok, Sikkim
The largest monastery in Sikkim and the main seat in exile of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism.
Buildings
Victoria Memorial, Kolkata
Kolkata, West Bengal
A grand white marble building of 1921 in memory of Queen Victoria, set in gardens, with a museum of the British period and the history of Kolkata.
Buildings
Nasir al-Mulk Mosque, Shiraz
Shiraz, Fars
The 'Pink Mosque', built in the 1880s, whose stained-glass windows flood the prayer hall with coloured light in the early morning, falling across the…
Buildings
Kylemore Abbey and Connemara
Clifden, Galway
A castle-like mansion beside a lake at the foot of the mountains in Connemara, built in the 1860s and home to Benedictine nuns since 1920.
Buildings
Florence Cathedral and Brunelleschi's Dome
Florence
Florence's cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore, with its marble façade of green, white and pink, and its huge red-brick dome by Filippo Brunelleschi, co…
Buildings
Milan Cathedral (Duomo)
Milan
One of the largest churches in the world, a Gothic cathedral that took nearly six centuries to complete, covered with more than 3,000 statues and 135…
Buildings
St Mark's Basilica and Square, Venice
Venice
St Mark's Basilica, the cathedral of Venice, glitters inside with more than 8,000 square metres of gold mosaics.
Buildings
Leaning Tower of Pisa
Pisa
The famous bell tower that began to lean while it was being built in the 12th century, because of soft ground.
Buildings
Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, Yamoussoukro
Yamoussoukro
One of the largest churches in the world, modelled on St Peter's in Rome, completed in 1989 in Côte d'Ivoire's capital, with vast stained glass windo…
Buildings
Fushimi Inari Taisha, Kyoto
Kyoto, Kyōto
The head shrine of Inari, the god of rice and business, famous for its thousands of bright vermilion torii gates, donated by businesses, which form t…
Buildings
Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion), Kyoto
Kyoto, Kyōto
A Zen temple whose top two floors are covered in gold leaf, reflected in a pond surrounded by pine trees and gardens.
Buildings
Astana's modern architecture
Astana
Kazakhstan's capital was built from scratch on the steppe from 1997, with futuristic buildings: the Bayterek Tower, a tree of life with a golden egg …
Buildings
Kuwait Towers
Kuwait City, Al Asimah
The symbol of Kuwait, three slender towers on the Gulf coast, two of them topped by spheres covered in blue and green discs, with a revolving observa…
Buildings
Rundāle Palace
Pilsrundāle, Bauska
A magnificent baroque palace designed by Rastrelli, the architect of the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, for the Duke of Courland in the 18th century.
Buildings
Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur
Twin skyscrapers 452 m high, the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 to 2004, linked by a skybridge on the 41st floor.
Buildings
Monte Carlo Casino
Monte-Carlo
The famous Belle Époque casino, opened in 1863, with gilded gaming rooms and an opera house designed by Charles Garnier, architect of the Paris Opera.
Buildings
Ben Youssef Madrasa, Marrakech
Marrakesh, Marrakech
A 16th-century Islamic college, the largest in Morocco, with a courtyard of carved cedar, stucco and zellige tiles around a pool, and tiny student ce…
Buildings
Hassan II Mosque, Casablanca
Casablanca
One of the largest mosques in the world, built partly over the Atlantic, with a 210 m minaret.
Buildings
Markthal and Cube Houses, Rotterdam
Rotterdam, South Holland
Rotterdam, rebuilt after the bombing of 1940, is the Netherlands' city of bold modern architecture.
Buildings
Tjibaou Cultural Centre, Nouméa
South Province
A centre for Kanak culture designed by Renzo Piano, with tall wooden 'huts' inspired by traditional houses, in gardens by the lagoon.
Buildings
New Zealand Parliament tours, Wellington
Wellington
Free guided tours of New Zealand's Parliament run every hour, every day, from the visitor centre in the foyer of Parliament House.
Buildings
Nidaros Cathedral, Trondheim
Trondheim, Trøndelag
The northernmost medieval cathedral in the world, built over the burial place of St Olav, Norway's patron saint, and for centuries the goal of pilgri…
Buildings
Oslo Opera House
Oslo
A striking white marble and glass building that seems to rise out of the Oslofjord, home of the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, opened in 2008.
Buildings
Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, Muscat
Bawshar, Muscat
Oman's main mosque, completed in 2001, with a huge Persian carpet and a Swarovski chandelier.
Buildings
Faisal Mosque, Islamabad
Islamabad
A strikingly modern mosque shaped like a desert tent, with four pencil-thin minarets, at the foot of the Margalla Hills in Islamabad.
Buildings
Itaipu Dam
Ciudad del Este, Alto Paraná
One of the largest hydroelectric dams in the world, shared by Paraguay and Brazil on the Paraná River.
Buildings
Pena Palace, Sintra
Sintra, Lisbon
A colourful romantic palace in red and yellow, built in the 19th century on a hilltop above Sintra, mixing Gothic, Moorish and Manueline styles.
Buildings
Monastery of Batalha
Batalha, Leiria
A magnificent Gothic monastery built to celebrate Portugal's victory over Castile in 1385, with a lacy stone façade, the Founder's Chapel with royal …
Buildings
Peleș Castle, Sinaia
Sinaia, Prahova
A fairytale neo-Renaissance castle in the Carpathian forest above Sinaia, built for King Carol I between 1873 and 1914, one of the first castles in E…
Buildings
Palace of the Parliament, Bucharest
Bucharest
One of the largest administrative buildings in the world, built by the dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu in the 1980s, after demolishing a large part of old…
Buildings
Catherine Palace and the Amber Room, Pushkin
Pushkin, Saint Petersburg
The summer residence of the Russian empresses at Tsarskoye Selo (now Pushkin), 25 km south of St Petersburg.
Buildings
Peterhof Palace and fountains
Peterhof, Saint Petersburg
Peter the Great's palace on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, built to rival Versailles.
Buildings
Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood, St Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
A colourful Russian-style church with onion domes, built on the spot where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881.
Buildings
Palazzo Pubblico, San Marino
San Marino
San Marino's town hall and seat of government, a neo-Gothic building in the Piazza della Libertà.
Buildings
Marina Bay Sands and the Merlion
Downtown Core, Central Singapore
Three hotel towers topped by a 340 m 'SkyPark' shaped like a ship, with an observation deck and the famous infinity pool (for hotel guests only).
Buildings
Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela, A Coruña
The great Romanesque cathedral at the end of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, said to hold the tomb of St James.
Buildings
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
Bilbao, Bizkaia
Frank Gehry's spectacular museum of modern art, opened in 1997, with curving forms clad in shining titanium beside the river.
Buildings
Sagrada Família, Barcelona
Barcelona
Antoni Gaudí's extraordinary basilica, under construction since 1882 and due to be finished in the coming years.
Buildings
Casa Batlló and Casa Milà, Barcelona
Barcelona
Two of Gaudí's most famous buildings on the elegant Passeig de Gràcia.
Buildings
City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia
Valencia
A futuristic complex of white buildings by Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela, set among pools in the former bed of the Turia River.
Buildings
Plaza de España, Seville
Sevilla
A vast semicircular plaza built for the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition, with a curving brick palace, towers, a canal crossed by bridges, and tiled al…
Buildings
Global Seed Vault, Svalbard
A secure seed bank built deep into a mountain near Longyearbyen, holding over a million samples of crop seeds from around the world, as a backup agai…
Buildings
Taipei 101
Xinyi District, Taipei
A 508 m skyscraper shaped like a stack of bamboo sections, the world's tallest building from 2004 to 2010.
Buildings
White Temple (Wat Rong Khun), Chiang Rai
Chiang Rai
A dazzling white temple covered with mirrored glass, designed by the artist Chalermchai Kositpipat, with a bridge over a sea of reaching hands repres…
Buildings
Hua Hin Railway Station
Hua Hin, Prachuap Khiri Khan
One of the prettiest railway stations in Thailand: a red-and-cream wooden pavilion built in the 1920s for the royal family, who made Hua Hin their se…
Buildings
Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmed Mosque), Istanbul
Fatih, İstanbul
Built between 1609 and 1616, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque is famous for its six minarets, its cascading domes and the more than 20,000 blue İznik tiles th…
Buildings
Ashgabat
Ashgabat
Turkmenistan's capital, rebuilt in white marble, holds the Guinness record for the most white marble buildings.
Buildings
Burj Khalifa, Dubai
Dubai
The tallest building in the world, 828 m, with observation decks on the 124th, 125th and 148th floors.
Buildings
Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi
A vast white marble mosque with 82 domes, completed in 2007, with the world's largest hand-knotted carpet, crystal chandeliers and reflecting pools.
Buildings
Beverley Minster
Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire
One of the finest Gothic churches in Europe, and often called the most beautiful church in England that isn't a cathedral.
Buildings
Bodleian Library and Radcliffe Camera, Oxford
Oxford, Oxfordshire
The heart of the University of Oxford: the Bodleian, one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and the domed Radcliffe Camera beside it, Oxford's most f…
Buildings
King's College Chapel, Cambridge
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
A masterpiece of late Gothic architecture, built between 1446 and 1515, with the largest fan-vaulted ceiling in the world and magnificent stained gla…
Buildings
Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament
City of Westminster, Westminster
Westminster Abbey has been the coronation church of English monarchs since 1066, and holds the tombs of kings and queens, and of Newton, Darwin and m…
Buildings
Windsor Castle
Windsor, Windsor and Maidenhead
The oldest and largest occupied castle in the world and an official residence of the King.
Buildings
York Minster and the Shambles
York
York Minster is one of the largest Gothic cathedrals in northern Europe, with the Great East Window, the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in…
Buildings
Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco
San Francisco, California
The famous suspension bridge, painted 'International Orange', opened in 1937 across the entrance to San Francisco Bay.
Buildings
Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island
Manhattan, New York
The 93 m statue, a gift from France in 1886, stands on Liberty Island in New York Harbor.
Buildings
St Peter's Basilica
The largest church in the world and the centre of the Catholic Church, built over the tomb of St Peter.
Buildings
Crazy House (Hằng Nga Guesthouse), Đà Lạt
Ðà Lạt, Lâm Đồng
An extraordinary building designed by architect Đặng Việt Nga, looking like a giant tree melting into the hillside, with staircases, tunnels and brid…