Country guide
United States
The United States sacred-site map spans Indigenous homelands, mission churches, Marian shrines, contemplative monasteries, desert pilgrimage landscapes, and newer places of spiritual gathering.
132 sacred sites across 75 regions. Use the tradition and site-type filters to narrow in.
Atlas summary
United States sacred sites overview
Sacred sites in the United States are often best understood by region: Southwestern ceremonial landscapes, Catholic and Orthodox pilgrimage shrines, Native American sacred mountains, healing springs, and urban houses of worship all sit in the same atlas.
Use this page to move from broad geography into specific traditions and site types, then compare individual site pages for access notes, cultural context, and nearby sacred places.
| Coverage | 132 sacred sites across 75 regions. |
|---|---|
| Regional clusters | |
| Traditions | |
| Site types | |
| UNESCO heritage | 6 UNESCO-tagged sites in this country guide. |
By tradition
Showing 49-96 of 181 sites in this country guide
Giant Springs, Great Falls, Montana
Great Falls, Montana, United States
At Giant Springs, water that began its journey as snowmelt in the Little Belt Mountains emerges after 3,000 years underground—crystal clear, a constant 54 degrees, flowing...
Gosses Bluff Crater, Australia
Macdonnell Region, Australia
In the Western MacDonnell Ranges of central Australia, a ring of mountains five kilometres across rises from the desert floor....
Grampians National Park
Shire of Northern Grampians, Victoria, Australia
In western Victoria, sandstone ranges rise from the surrounding plains — a landscape the Jardwadjali and Djab Wurrung peoples have known as Gariwerd for more than 30,000...
Grand Canyon National Park
Grand Canyon Village, Arizona, United States
For at least 12,000 years, humans have stood at the edge of this chasm and felt something shift....
Grave Creek Mound, Moundsville, Ohio
Moundsville, West Virginia, United States
Rising sixty-two feet above the Ohio River valley, Grave Creek Mound stands as one of the largest conical burial mounds in North America....
Great Sand Dunes, Colorado
Mosca, Colorado, United States
The Great Sand Dunes are cultural property to 18 Indigenous tribes who gather sand here for healing rituals and sand paintings....
Guadalupe Peak, Texas
Salt Flat, Texas, United States
Rising 8,751 feet above the Chihuahuan Desert, Guadalupe Peak stands as one of the four sacred mountains of the Mescalero Apache, where creation narratives place their...
Hala Sultan Tekki
Dromolaxia - Meneou Municipality, Cyprus, Cyprus
On the western shore of the Larnaca Salt Lake in Cyprus, an Ottoman mosque and mausoleum complex marks the burial place of Umm Haram, a woman from the Prophet Muhammad's...
Hikiau Heiau, Hawaii
Captain Cook, Hawaii, United States
On the shore of Kealakekua Bay, massive stones rise in witness to what came before and what persists....
Hikinaakala Heiau, Kauai
Kapaa, Hawaii, United States
At the mouth of the Wailua River on Kauai's eastern shore, the foundation stones of Hikinaakala Heiau mark the exact point where the rising sun first touches the island....
Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks
Newark, Ohio, United States
The Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks rise from Ohio's rolling landscape as monuments to a 2,000-year-old vision....
Horseshoe Bend
Page, Arizona, United States
A thousand feet below the overlook, the Colorado River completes its patient arc through Navajo Sandstone, forming the near-perfect horseshoe that has drawn both...
House of Taga
San Jose, Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands, San Jose, Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands, United States
House of Taga holds the largest latte stone formation in the Mariana Islands, twelve massive pillars once supporting a chief's house, now reduced to a single upright shaft...
Hovenweep Ruins, Utah
Shiprock Agency, Utah, United States
On the high desert where Utah meets Colorado, stone towers stand at the edges of canyons, their windows aligned with solstice and equinox....
Iao Valley State Park, Maui
Wailuku, Hawaii, United States
In the West Maui Mountains, mist drifts through a valley that has been sacred to Hawaiians for centuries....
Inyan Kara Mountain, Wyoming
Sundance, Wyoming, United States
Rising from the Wyoming plains at the western edge of the Black Hills, Inyan Kara Mountain holds profound significance for the Lakota people as part of an interconnected...
Island Lake, Colorado
Silverton, Colorado, United States
Island Lake near Silverton offers what might be called a contemporary nature pilgrimage....
Jeffers Petroglyphs, Comfrey, Minnesota
Comfrey, Minnesota, United States
On a ridge of red Sioux quartzite in southwestern Minnesota, approximately five thousand rock carvings stretch across one of the oldest continuously used sacred sites in...
Joshua Tree National Park, California
Joshua Tree, California, United States
Rising from the meeting place of two deserts, Joshua Tree's otherworldly landscape of giant granite boulders and twisted trees has drawn seekers for millennia....
Kakadu National Park
West Arnhem Region, Australia
Kakadu National Park holds the longest continuous record of human habitation on Earth....
Karlu Karlu / Devils Marbles Conservation Reserve
Wauchope / Tennant Creek region, Northern Territory, Wauchope / Tennant Creek region, Northern Territory, Australia
On the Stuart Highway between Tennant Creek and Alice Springs, granite boulders nearly two billion years old rise from the desert in stacked, balanced forms....
Kata Tjuṯa
Yulara / Mutitjulu, Northern Territory, Yulara / Mutitjulu, Northern Territory, Australia
Kata Tjuṭa's 36 red conglomerate domes rise from Anangu country as an active men's ceremonial site under Tjukurpa, the traditional law that Anangu custodians hold as...
Keahiakawelo (Garden of the Gods), Hawaii
Lanai City, Hawaii, United States
On the remote northwestern shore of Lanai, red rock towers rise from barren earth in formations so otherworldly that visitors struggle to reconcile them with typical...
Kilauea
Volcano, Hawaii, United States
On Hawaii's Big Island, Kilauea volcano rises as the dwelling place of Pele, goddess of fire and creator of the Hawaiian Islands....
Kincaid Mounds, Brookport, Illinois
Brookport, Illinois, United States
For 350 years, Kincaid Mounds served as the heart of a chiefdom where thousands gathered for ceremony, governance, and trade....
Kizhi Pogost, Kizhi Island
Kizhi, Republic of Karelia, Russia
Rising from an island in Lake Onega, Kizhi Pogost stands as the supreme achievement of Russian wooden architecture....
Ku-ring-gai Chase Aboriginal Heritage Walk
Sydney / Ku-ring-gai Chase, New South Wales, Sydney / Ku-ring-gai Chase, New South Wales, Australia
The Aboriginal Heritage Walk in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park threads past rock engravings, hand stencils, and middens left by the Garigal and Darramurragal peoples...
Kukaniloko Birthstones, Hawaii
Wahiawa, Hawaii, United States
In the pineapple fields of central Oahu, stones rise from the earth that are not quite stones....
Lake Jackson Mounds, Tallahassee, Florida
Tallahassee, Florida, United States
In the rolling hills north of Tallahassee, six earthen mounds rise from the red clay of Florida's Panhandle....
Lake Mungo
Willandra Lakes, New South Wales, Australia
In the dry lakebed of outback Australia lies evidence of humanity's earliest spiritual practices—a woman cremated with ceremony 42,000 years ago, a man laid to rest with...
Lassen Peak, California
Mineral, California, United States
Lassen Peak stands as the southernmost active volcano in the Cascade Range and ancestral homeland of the Atsugewi, Yana, Yahi, and Mountain Maidu peoples....
Maria Stein Shrine of the Holy Relics
Maria Stein, Ohio, United States
In rural western Ohio, surrounded by farmland and the steeples of over thirty cross-tipped churches, the Maria Stein Shrine of the Holy Relics holds one of the largest...
Marksville mounds
Marksville, Louisiana, United States
For two thousand years, the mounds at Marksville have held the dead. The Marksville culture that built them was connected by trade and ceremony to peoples across North...
Mauna Kea, Hawaii
Hilo, Hawaii, United States
Mauna Kea rises nearly 14,000 feet above Hawaii Island, a dormant volcano that Native Hawaiians call Mauna a Wakea, the first-born mountain child of Sky Father and Earth...
Meteor Crater, Arizona
Coconino County, Arizona, United States
Fifty thousand years ago, a nickel-iron meteorite crossed the boundary between space and earth, excavating a crater nearly a mile wide in the Arizona high desert....
Mo'okini Heiau
Hawi, Hawaii, United States
On a windswept point at the northern tip of Hawaii's Big Island stands Mo'okini Heiau, one of the oldest temples in the Hawaiian archipelago....
Mossman Gorge
Mossman, Queensland, Mossman, Queensland, Australia
Mossman Gorge, known to its Traditional Owners as Jinkalmu, is a granite-boulder rainforest gorge in the Daintree that has sustained Eastern Kuku Yalanji life for tens of...
Mounds State Park, Indiana
Anderson, Indiana, United States
Twenty-two centuries ago, the Adena people began building earthen circles in what is now central Indiana....
Mount Adams, Washington
Trout Lake, Washington, United States
Rising 12,276 feet above the Columbia Plateau, Mount Adams is one of five sacred sister mountains for the Yakama Nation....
Mount Diablo, California
Contra Costa County, California, United States
The Ohlone call it Tuyshtak—'at the dawn of time.' The Bay Miwok say the world began here, after a great flood....
Mount Graham, Arizona
Safford, Arizona, United States
Mount Graham rises 10,720 feet in southeastern Arizona, home to the Ga'an—the mountain spirits who guide Apache life....
Mount Royal Mound, Florida
Welaka, Florida, United States
At the edge of Lake George in northeast Florida, a mound rises from the wetlands where the St. Johns River flows north....
Mount San Jacinto, California
Riverside County, California, United States
Mount San Jacinto rises nearly two vertical miles above the Sonoran desert floor outside Palm Springs, creating one of the most dramatic vertical landscapes in North...
Mount Shasta
Siskiyou County, California, United States
Mount Shasta rises 14,179 feet from northern California flatlands, a snow-capped volcano visible for a hundred miles....
Mount Tamalpais
Marin County, California, United States
Mount Tamalpais rises 2,571 feet above San Francisco Bay, a mountain sacred to the Coast Miwok for thousands of years and recognized by the Lakota as the 'Holy Right Eye...
Mount Wollumbin
Tweed Shire Council, New South Wales, Australia
Mount Tomorri rises 2,416 metres above southern Albania, visible from Berat and the Osum River valley....
Mount Yengo
Wollombi / Yengo National Park, New South Wales, Wollombi / Yengo National Park, New South Wales, Australia
Mount Yengo's unusually flat summit is understood by its Aboriginal custodians as the place where Baiame, the creator being, completed his work and returned to the sky...
Mt. Baboquivari, Arizona
Tucson, Arizona, United States
Baboquivari Peak rises from the Sonoran Desert as the most sacred place of the Tohono O'odham people....
Showing 49-96 of 181 sites
Key questions
United States sacred-site questions
- What sacred sites can I explore in United States?
- Pilgrim Map lists sacred places in United States across living worship sites, heritage landmarks, pilgrimage destinations, and culturally significant landscapes. The current guide lists 132 sites organized by region, tradition, and site type.
- Which traditions are represented in United States?
- The most represented traditions include Indigenous, Christianity, Multi-faith, Ancient Greek and Roman, Islam, Celtic and Prehistoric.
- How should I plan a sacred-site visit in United States?
- Start with regional clusters, compare nearby places on the map, then open individual site pages for coordinates, etiquette, and sacred context where available.
- Can I view United States sacred sites on a map?
- Yes. Switch to map view to compare geographic clusters, then open individual site pages for coordinates, visiting context, and related places.