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The newest sacred places to enter the atlas. 90 fresh entries.

Christianity

Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá

Zipaquirá, Cundinamarca, Colombia

The descent beneath Zipaquirá begins as a mine passage and gradually becomes a sacred narrative....

Taoism

Xiluo Fuxing Temple

Xiluo, Yunlin County, Xiluo, Yunlin County, Taiwan

Xiluo Fuxing Temple houses a black-faced Mazu statue said to have crossed from Meizhou in 1717, whose autumn pilgrimage — Taiwan's only one held outside spring — cannot...

Taoism

Shuntian Temple, Tuku

Tuku, Yunlin County, Tuku, Yunlin County, Taiwan

Shuntian Temple has anchored Tuku Township since the Qing dynasty, but its most striking chapter came in 1940, when local administrators registered it as a Japanese...

Taoism

Nanyao Temple

Changhua City, Changhua County, Changhua City, Changhua County, Taiwan

Nanyao Temple in Changhua is one of central Taiwan's most important Mazu temples, sustained not by centralized clergy but by ten independent lay associations that rotate...

Indigenous

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...

Indigenous

Quinkan Split Rock Art Site

Laura, Queensland, Laura, Queensland, Australia

Split Rock rises above the Peninsula Development Road south of Laura, its sandstone overhangs holding painted and engraved figures generations old....

Indigenous

Carnarvon Gorge Art Gallery

Carnarvon Gorge, Queensland, Carnarvon Gorge, Queensland, Australia

Deep in a sandstone gorge in central Queensland, a sheltered rock wall carries roughly 2,000 stencils, engravings and paintings built up over thousands of years....

Indigenous

Chambers Pillar Historical Reserve

Hugh / Alice Springs region, Northern Territory, Hugh / Alice Springs region, Northern Territory, Australia

Fifty metres of red sandstone rise abruptly from the flat desert plain south of Alice Springs....

Indigenous

Simpsons Gap

Alice Springs / Tjoritja, Northern Territory, Alice Springs / Tjoritja, Northern Territory, Australia

A permanent waterhole cut into red quartzite walls west of Alice Springs, Simpsons Gap is Rungutjirpa to the Arrernte people — the mythological home of ancestral goanna...

Indigenous

Yeperenye / Emily and Jessie Gaps Nature Park

Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia

A narrow red quartzite gap east of Alice Springs, Anthwerrke (Emily Gap) and Akepelye (Jessie Gap) mark the place where three ancestral caterpillar beings meet in Arrernte...

Indigenous

N'Dhala Gorge Nature Park

Ross River / Alice Springs region, Northern Territory, Ross River / Alice Springs region, Northern Territory, Australia

N'Dhala Gorge cuts through red sandstone 90km east of Alice Springs, its walls carrying roughly 6,000 engravings made by Eastern Arrernte ancestors across two broad phases...

Indigenous

Napwerte / Ewaninga Rock Carvings Conservation Reserve

Hale / Alice Springs region, Northern Territory, Hale / Alice Springs region, Northern Territory, Australia

South of Alice Springs, a shallow claypan is bordered by low sandstone outcrops bearing one of the densest concentrations of rock engravings in the Northern Territory....

Indigenous

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....

Indigenous

Bunjil's Shelter

Stawell / Black Range, Victoria, Stawell / Black Range, Victoria, Australia

In a shallow shelter beneath a granite boulder in Victoria's Black Range, a small ochre painting shows Bunjil, the creator-being of south-eastern Australia, flanked by two...

Indigenous

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...

Indigenous

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...

Indigenous

Red Hands Cave

Glenbrook / Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Glenbrook / Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia

A sandstone shelter in the Blue Mountains carries dozens of ochre hand stencils, left by Darug and Gundungurra people across centuries and dated to roughly 500 to 1,600...

Indigenous

Mutawintji Historic Site

Mutawintji / Broken Hill region, New South Wales, Mutawintji / Broken Hill region, New South Wales, Australia

Mutawintji holds one of New South Wales's largest collections of Aboriginal rock art, at a site that hosted regional gatherings of up to a thousand people for initiation...

Indigenous

Baiame Cave

Milbrodale / Singleton, New South Wales, Milbrodale / Singleton, New South Wales, Australia

On a sandstone escarpment above Bulga Creek in the Hunter Valley, a painted figure with outstretched arms spanning roughly five metres represents the creator being known...

Indigenous

Murujuga Cultural Landscape

Dampier / Karratha, Western Australia, Dampier / Karratha, Western Australia, Australia

Murujuga's red rock holds an estimated one to two million petroglyphs made over 40,000 to 50,000 years by the ancestors of the Ngarluma, Yaburara, Mardudhunera,...

Indigenous

Nanguluwurr Art Site

Jabiru / Burrungkuy region, Northern Territory, Jabiru / Burrungkuy region, Northern Territory, Australia

Nanguluwurr sits in a quiet rock shelter on the northern flank of Burrungkuy, along a route Bininj/Mungguy people have walked for millennia....

Indigenous

Burrungkuy (Nourlangie)

Jabiru / Burrungkuy region, Northern Territory, Jabiru / Burrungkuy region, Northern Territory, Australia

Burrungkuy (Nourlangie) rises from the Kakadu floodplain as a rock art complex occupied for more than 6,000 years, its Anbangbang gallery holding an x-ray-style painting...

Indigenous

Ubirr

Jabiru / East Alligator region, Northern Territory, Jabiru / East Alligator region, Northern Territory, Australia

Ubirr rises above Kakadu's Nadab floodplain, its galleries layered with rock art spanning tens of thousands of years and its escarpment tied to the Dreaming journey of...

Indigenous

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...

Indigenous

Ahu Akivi

Hanga Roa interior, Rapa Nui, Valparaíso Region, Hanga Roa interior, Rapa Nui, Valparaíso Region, Chile

Ahu Akivi's seven uniform moai stand on an inland pasture, gazing toward the ocean rather than a settlement — the only ahu on Rapa Nui known to do so....

Indigenous

Pulemelei Mound

Palauli, Savai'i, Palauli, Savai’i, Samoa

Pulemelei is a stepped stone mound roughly 65 by 60 meters at its base, the largest ancient structure known in Polynesia, built by pre-contact Samoan communities and left...

Indigenous

Vinapu Ceremonial Complex

Hanga Roa, Rapa Nui, Valparaíso Region, Hanga Roa, Rapa Nui, Valparaíso Region, Chile

Vinapu's rear wall shows the finest unmortared stonework on Rapa Nui, blocks of basalt cut and fitted with a precision that has drawn comparisons to Inca masonry for...

Indigenous

Tahai Ceremonial Complex

Hanga Roa, Rapa Nui, Valparaíso Region, Hanga Roa, Rapa Nui, Valparaíso Region, Chile

Tahai gathers three ahu — Ko Te Riku, Tahai, and Vai Uri — into a single coastal complex near Hanga Roa, one of the island's oldest ceremonial sites and, today, its...

Indigenous

Ahu Nau Nau

Anakena, Rapa Nui, Valparaíso Region, Anakena, Rapa Nui, Valparaíso Region, Chile

At Anakena's white-sand cove, seven restored moai stand where, according to Rapa Nui tradition, the island's first Polynesian settlers made landfall....

Indigenous

Puʻu o Mahuka Heiau

Pūpūkea / Haleʻiwa, Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, Pūpūkea / Haleʻiwa, Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, United States

Puʻu o Mahuka is the largest heiau on Oʻahu, a luakini-class temple reserved for the highest political and religious rites of the island's paramount chiefs....

Indigenous

Taranaki Maunga

Egmont National Park / Taranaki, Taranaki Region, Egmont National Park / Taranaki, Taranaki Region, New Zealand

Taranaki Maunga is a near-symmetrical volcanic peak on New Zealand's North Island understood by Taranaki iwi as a direct ancestor rather than scenery....

Indigenous

Maungakiekie / One Tree Hill

Auckland, Auckland Region, Auckland, Auckland Region, New Zealand

Maungakiekie rises over Tāmaki Makaurau as both a tūpuna maunga sacred to mana whenua and one of Aotearoa's largest pre-European pā complexes....

Indigenous

Matapa Chasm

Hikutavake, Niue, Hikutavake, Niue, Niue

Between two limestone cliffs on Niue's northwest coast, a narrow tidal inlet holds water so clear it seems lit from below....

Indigenous

Tuoro

Avarua / Nikao, Rarotonga, Avarua / Nikao, Rarotonga, Cook Islands

On Rarotonga's northwest coast, a black basalt headland meets the reef at a place islanders swim and watch the sun set....

Indigenous

Arai-Te-Tonga Marae

Avarua / Ngatangiia, Rarotonga, Avarua / Ngatangiia, Rarotonga, Cook Islands

Beside an ancient coral road on Rarotonga stands a modest cluster of stone platforms where, for seven centuries, paramount chiefs of the Makea tribe were lifted onto a...

Indigenous

Ancient Royal Tombs of Lapaha

Mu'a / Lapaha, Tongatapu, Mu’a / Lapaha, Tongatapu, Tonga

Stepped platforms of uncemented coral limestone at Lapaha hold the traditional burial ground of the Tuʻi Tonga, paramount chiefs said to descend from the sky god Tangaloa....

Indigenous

Haʻamonga ʻa Maui

Niutoua / Heketā, Tongatapu, Niutoua / Heketā, Tongatapu, Tonga

A coral-limestone trilithon on Tongatapu's eastern coast, raised around 1200 AD as gateway to a vanished royal compound....

Indigenous

Ahu Tongariki

Hanga Nui, Rapa Nui, Valparaíso Region, Hanga Nui, Rapa Nui, Valparaíso Region, Chile

Fifteen moai face inland across a hundred-meter stone platform at Hanga Nui bay, backs to the Pacific, watching over a community they were carved to protect....

Indigenous

Rano Raraku

Hanga Roa / Hanga Nui area, Rapa Nui, Valparaíso Region, Hanga Roa / Hanga Nui area, Rapa Nui, Valparaíso Region, Chile

On the slopes of a volcanic crater on Rapa Nui's eastern side, hundreds of moai stand half-buried in the earth where they were carved — some finished, some abandoned...

Indigenous

Orongo Ceremonial Village

Hanga Roa, Rapa Nui, Valparaíso Region, Hanga Roa, Rapa Nui, Valparaíso Region, Chile

On the rim of the Rano Kau volcanic crater, low stone houses look out over sheer cliffs toward three offshore islets....

Indigenous

Tehueto Petroglyphs and Me’ae

Atuona / Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands, Atuona / Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia

Tehueto holds tiki heads, a stone ceremonial platform, and petroglyphs of raised-arm human figures carved into a large basalt block, reached by a river-valley hike inland...

Indigenous

Maeva Archaeological Site

Maeva, Huahine, Society Islands, Maeva, Huahine, Society Islands, French Polynesia

On Huahine's shoreline and the lower slopes of Mata'ire'a Hill, Maeva concentrates the densest cluster of pre-European marae in the Society Islands — dozens of temple...

Indigenous

Opunohu Marae Complex

Papetoai / Opunohu Valley, Moorea, Society Islands, Papetoai / Opunohu Valley, Moorea, Society Islands, French Polynesia

Along a marked forest trail in Moorea's Opunohu Valley, hundreds of marae — ancestral temple platforms — rise from mape and banyan groves....

Indigenous

Marae Arahurahu

Paea, Tahiti, Society Islands, Paea, Tahiti, Society Islands, French Polynesia

In the Tefa'aiti valley on Tahiti's west coast, Marae Arahurahu is the most fully restored ceremonial platform in French Polynesia — rebuilt in 1953 after a century and a...

Indigenous

Marae Taputapuātea

Opoa, Raiatea, Society Islands, Opoa, Raiatea, Society Islands, French Polynesia

On a peninsula at Opoa, on the island of Raiatea, a paved courtyard and standing stone mark the ancestral center of the Polynesian world....

Indigenous

As Nieves Latte Stone Quarry

Songsong / Sinapalo area, Rota, Northern Mariana Islands, Songsong / Sinapalo area, Rota, Northern Mariana Islands, United States

At As Nieves on Rota, nine massive latte shafts and seven capstones sit exactly where their carvers left them, mid-quarry, for reasons no source can confirm....

Indigenous

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...

Indigenous

Mangyol Stone Money Bank

Makiy, Gagil, Yap State, Makiy, Gagil, Yap State, Federated States of Micronesia

Mangyol is a cross-shaped ceremonial ground in Yap holding dozens of massive limestone discs — stone money quarried hundreds of miles away in Palau and paddled home by...

Indigenous

Leluh Ruins

Lelu, Kosrae State, Lelu, Kosrae State, Federated States of Micronesia

Leluh was the political and religious capital of a unified Kosraean kingdom, a walled city of basalt and coral compounds where a paramount chief's remains were guarded by...

Indigenous

Nan Madol

Temwen Island, Pohnpei State, Temwen Island, Pohnpei State, Federated States of Micronesia

Nan Madol rises from a Pohnpei lagoon as ninety-odd artificial islets stacked with basalt columns weighing tens of tons apiece....

Indigenous

Wanshan Rock Carvings

Maolin, Kaohsiung City, Maolin, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan

The Wanshan Rock Carvings are Taiwan's sole confirmed body of prehistoric rock art, four remote sites of undeciphered spirals, faces, and snake figures carved into stone...

Multi-tradition

Baxian Cave Archaeological Site

Changbin, Taitung County, Changbin, Taitung County, Taiwan

Baxian Cave holds Taiwan's earliest known evidence of human habitation, a Paleolithic site tens of thousands of years old carved into sea cliffs on the east coast....

Indigenous

Beinan Archaeological Site Park

Taitung City, Taitung County, Taitung City, Taitung County, Taiwan

Beinan Archaeological Site Park in Taitung preserves the largest known slate-coffin burial complex in the Pacific Rim, holding nearly 1,600 graves from a...

Taoism

Jinbanjing Mazu Temple

Nangan, Lienchiang County (Matsu), Nangan, Lienchiang County (Matsu), Taiwan

Jinbanjing Mazu Temple in Ren'ai Village, Nangan, retains eastern Fujian architecture largely lost elsewhere on the Matsu Islands....

Buddhism

Haiyin Temple, Kinmen

Jinhu, Kinmen County, Jinhu, Kinmen County, Taiwan

Haiyin Temple sits near the summit of Mount Taiwu, Kinmen's highest point, where a Song-dynasty folk shrine gradually became one of the island's most significant Buddhist...

Buddhism

Penghu Guanyin Temple

Magong, Penghu County, Magong, Penghu County, Taiwan

Penghu Guanyin Temple has watched over Magong Harbor since 1696, when a Qing naval officer expanded a small waterside pavilion into the archipelago's first Buddhist temple....

Taoism

Penghu Tianhou Temple

Magong, Penghu County, Magong, Penghu County, Taiwan

A granite stele found on-site in 1919 proves a Mazu temple stood here by 1604 — the only founding date the evidence can actually support, though tourism copy routinely...

Multi-tradition

Sanxiantai

Chenggong, Taitung County, Chenggong, Taitung County, Taiwan

Sanxiantai is a rock island off Taiwan's east coast, severed from the mainland by centuries of erosion and reached today by a wave-shaped footbridge....

Taoism

Taitung Tianhou Temple

Taitung City, Taitung County, Taitung City, Taitung County, Taiwan

On Taitung City's busiest commercial street, an ornate temple to Mazu marks eastern Taiwan's only Qing-dynasty officially sanctioned site of her worship....

Christianity

Wanjin Basilica of the Immaculate Conception

Wanjin, Pingtung County, Wanjin, Pingtung County, Taiwan

In a rural stretch of southern Taiwan more commonly associated with Taoist temples and Buddhist shrines, twin Spanish-Gothic bell towers rise above rice paddies....

Taoism

Donglong Temple

Donggang, Pingtung County, Donggang, Pingtung County, Taiwan

Every three years, the fishing town of Donggang builds a wooden warship by hand, parades it through streets thick with incense smoke, and burns it on the beach before dawn....

Taoism

Orthodox Luermen Sheng-Mu Temple

Annan, Tainan City, Annanh, Tainan City, Taiwan

A palace-scale Mazu complex on Tainan's coast, built where tradition holds the sea goddess opened a path through the Luermen sandbar for Koxinga's 1661 fleet....

Buddhism

Biyun Temple, Baihe

Baihe, Tainan City, Baihe, Tainan City, Taiwan

Halfway up Pillow Mountain in the volcanic Guanziling hills, Biyun Temple has sheltered a Guanyin statue carried from Fujian since the turn of the eighteenth century....

Taoism

Nankunshen Daitian Temple

Beimen, Tainan City, Beimen, Tainan City, Taiwan

On a sandbar in Beimen, a boat carrying five unmanned statues is said to have drifted ashore centuries ago....