Site type guide
Shrine
Shrines are often intimate centers of devotion, memory, petition, healing, and pilgrimage, ranging from local roadside places to major international destinations.
91 shrine sacred sites. Use the country and tradition filters to narrow in.
Atlas summary
Shrine sacred sites overview
Shrine sacred sites span countries, traditions, pilgrimage routes, and sacred landscapes represented in the Pilgrim Map atlas.
Use this guide to compare major country clusters, represented traditions, UNESCO-tagged places, and the map distribution before opening individual site pages.
| Coverage | 91 shrine sacred sites across the current atlas. |
|---|---|
| Major countries | |
| Traditions | |
| UNESCO heritage | 3 UNESCO-tagged shrine sites appear in this browse view. |
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91
Showing 49-91 of 91 sites in this site-type guide
Kumano Hongū Taisha
Tanabe, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan
For over a thousand years, every path of the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage has led here....
Kumano-Nachi Grand Shrine
Nachikatsuura, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan
One of the three great Kumano shrines, Kumano Nachi Taisha rises on Mt. Nachi above Japan's tallest waterfall....
Madonna di Loreto
Loreto, Ancona, Italy
Within the Holy House of Loreto stands a statue of the Madonna carved from Lebanese cedar, her face and hands dark....
Madonna di Montevergine (Mamma Schiavona)
Mercogliano, Campania, Italy
Rising 1,270 meters above the Campanian plains, the Sanctuary of Montevergine has drawn pilgrims for nine centuries to venerate Mamma Schiavona, the Black Madonna....
Mahan
Mahan, Kerman Province, Iran
In Mahan, near Kerman, the shrine of Shah Nematollah Vali enfolds the tomb of the 14th-century poet and mystic who founded the Nimatullahi Sufi order....
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...
Martyrs' Shrine
Tay, Ontario, Canada
Martyrs' Shrine stands on a hill near Midland, Ontario, honoring eight Jesuit missionaries and companions killed between 1642 and 1649 during the encounter between French...
Masjid Dastgeer Sahib, Kashmir
Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India
Rising from the heart of Srinagar's Khanyar quarter, Dastgeer Sahib houses a hair relic of Abdul Qadir Gilani, founder of the Qadiriyya Sufi order....
Meher Kapısı
Turkey
Meher Kapısı is a monumental niche hewn into the vertical face of Zımzım Mountain, near Van in eastern Turkey....
Meiji Shrine
Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
Rising from the heart of Tokyo, Meiji Shrine offers one of the world's most dramatic sacred thresholds....
Mitsumine Jingu (Mitsumine Grand Shrine)
Chichibu, Saitama Prefecture, Japan
High in the Chichibu mountains, Mitsumine Shrine guards nearly two thousand years of worship at a place where wolves once guided a lost prince to safety....
Nikkō Tōshō-gū
Nikko, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan
Nikko Toshogu is the mausoleum and shrine of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the warlord who unified Japan and founded a dynasty that ruled for 300 years of peace....
Notre-Dame de Bon-Espoir
Dijon, Bourgogne – Franche-Comté, France
In a Gothic church praised by Viollet-le-Duc as a masterpiece of reason, one of France's oldest Marian statues holds court....
Notre-Dame de Confession (Our Lady of Confession)
Marseille, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France
In the crypt of Marseille's oldest sanctuary, a Black Madonna waits in the half-darkness....
Notre-Dame de Fourvière
Lyon, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France
Crowning the hill that was the cradle of Roman Lyon, Notre-Dame de Fourvière is the Marian heart of the city — built by public subscription in thanksgiving for deliverance...
Notre-Dame de Sous-Terre (Our Lady Under the Earth)
Chartres, Centre-Val de Loire, France
Beneath the soaring Gothic nave of Chartres Cathedral lies its oldest and most mysterious space: the crypt where Notre-Dame de Sous-Terre—Our Lady Under the Earth—has been...
Our Lady (Virgin) of Montserrat (La Moreneta)
Marganell, Catalonia, Spain
High on a serrated mountain above Catalonia, the Black Madonna of Montserrat has drawn pilgrims for over a thousand years....
Our Lady of Altötting
Altötting, Bavaria, Germany
Altötting's tiny octagonal Chapel of Grace houses one of Europe's most venerated Black Madonnas — a small dark lindenwood statue carved in the early fourteenth century....
Our Lady of Atocha
Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain
Steps from one of Europe's busiest train stations, the Real Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Atocha shelters Madrid's oldest Marian image, a 13th-century wooden figure to...
Our Lady of Chipiona
Chipiona, Andalusia, Spain
Where the Guadalquivir River meets the Atlantic, a dark-skinned Virgin has watched over sailors, prisoners, and pilgrims for seven centuries....
Our Lady of Częstochowa
Częstochowa, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland
The Black Madonna of Czestochowa rests in the fortress-monastery of Jasna Gora, her dark face bearing two sword slashes that have resisted all repair....
Our Lady of Einsiedeln
Einsiedeln, Canton Schwyz, Switzerland
In the Swiss Alps, a dark-faced Madonna has drawn seekers since the ninth century....
Our Lady of Guadalupe
Guadalupe, Extremadura, Spain
The Royal Monastery of Santa María de Guadalupe in the Sierra de las Villuercas is a UNESCO World Heritage site (1993, ref 665) and one of Spain's most consequential...
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico
Mexico City, Mexico City, Mexico
At the foot of Tepeyac Hill, where an Aztec goddess once dwelt and a brown-skinned Virgin appeared to an indigenous man, the world's most visited Catholic pilgrimage site...
Our Lady of Le Puy
Le Puy-en-Velay, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France
Rising from a 132-meter volcanic spur, Notre-Dame de France dominates Le Puy-en-Velay's extraordinary skyline....
Our Lady of Loreto
Pesaro, Marche, Italy
Loreto preserves what Catholic tradition holds to be the actual house of the Holy Family from Nazareth — the room where the Annunciation took place and where Jesus spent...
Our Lady of Luján
Luján, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
In 1630, oxen refused to move until a small statue of the Virgin Mary was unloaded at the banks of the Lujan River....
Our Lady of Rocamadour
Rocamadour, Lot, France
Carved into a limestone cliff above the Alzou Valley, Rocamadour has drawn pilgrims for nearly nine centuries to venerate a small, dark statue known as the Black Madonna....
Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn
Vilnius, Vilnius County, Lithuania
Above the only surviving gate of Vilnius's medieval walls, a seventeenth-century icon of the Virgin Mary draws Catholic, Orthodox, and Greek Catholic faithful into a...
Our Lady the Black Virgin of Hal
Diegem, Flemish Brabant, Belgium
The Black Virgin of Hal is a small thirteenth-century walnut statue of the Virgin and Child kept on the high altar of the Brabantine Gothic basilica of Saint Martin in...
Pir Khidir Zinda
Siyazan, Siyazan Rayon (District), Azerbaijan
At the foot of Beshbarmag Mountain on Azerbaijan's Caspian coast, Pir Khidir Zinda marks the place where the prophet Khidr is said to have achieved immortality....
Sanctuary of Our Lady of Kibeho
Kibeho, Kibeho, Nyaruguru District, Southern Province, Rwanda
Between 1981 and 1989, three Rwandan schoolgirls at Kibeho College reported apparitions of Mary identifying herself as Nyina wa Jambo, Mother of the Word....
Sanctuary of Our Lady of the End of the Bridge – Refuge of the Mother and Child of Pau
France
In Pau, this neo-Gothic church gathers a Béarnais Marian devotion documented since the sixteenth century — Our Lady at the end of the bridge, invoked for safe crossing and...
Santa Casa di Loreto
Loreto, Ancona, Italy
At the center of Loreto's basilica, enclosed within Bramante's marble screen, stand three rough stone walls....
Shrine of La Virgen del Puente
Sahagún, Sahagún, León, Castile and León, Spain
A small Mudéjar brick hermitage beside a medieval bridge over the Valderaduey, marking the first Marian waypoint pilgrims meet on the Camino Francés as they cross from...
Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help
Champion, Champion, Wisconsin, United States
In a quiet corner of Wisconsin's Northwoods, Belgian immigrant Adele Brise reported three apparitions of Mary in October 1859....
Shrine of the Virgen de Gracia
San Lorenzo de El Escorial, San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Madrid, Spain
Tucked in the Herrería forest above San Lorenzo de El Escorial, this small hermitage holds the town's patroness — a Marian image local tradition says was discovered by...
Sumiyoshi-taisha
Osaka, Osaka Prefecture, Japan
When Izanagi purified himself in the sea after his journey to the underworld, three deities emerged from the waters—the Sumiyoshi Sanjin, gods of the sea who have...
Suwa-taisha
Suwa, Nagano Prefecture, Japan
Suwa-taisha predates shrine architecture itself. Four shrines encircle Lake Suwa in Nagano Prefecture, but their sacred objects are not artifacts—they are Mount Moriya and...
The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Laghet
La Trinité, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France
High in the hills between Nice and Monaco, the Sanctuary of Notre-Dame de Laghet has drawn pilgrims since 1652, when spontaneous healings began occurring at a humble...
Togakushi Shrine
Nagano, Nagano Prefecture, Japan
Mount Togakushi is literally the 'Hidden Door'—the cave entrance that the god Tajikarao threw across the heavens after pulling the sun goddess Amaterasu from her hiding...
Usa Jingu
Usa, Oita Prefecture, Japan
In 749 CE, when Emperor Shōmu consecrated the Great Buddha at Tōdai-ji, a deity traveled from Kyushu to Nara for the ceremony—the first time a Shinto god participated in...
Virgen of Chaguaya
Chaguaya, Tarija Department, Bolivia
In the high valleys of southern Bolivia, tens of thousands of pilgrims walk through the cold night each August to reach a small village where the Virgin Mary appeared in...
Showing 49-91 of 91 sites
Previous pageKey questions
Shrine sacred-site questions
- What shrine sacred sites are included?
- Shrine sacred sites are places where this site type carries religious, ritual, cultural, or pilgrimage significance. This guide lists 91 in the current Pilgrim Map atlas.
- Where are these shrine sites located?
- Major country clusters include Japan, France, Spain, Austria, Italy, Iran.
- Which traditions are represented?
- Traditions represented here include Christianity, Shinto, Islam, Pre-Columbian, Ancient, Indigenous.
- Can I view shrine sacred sites on a map?
- Yes. Compare the country and tradition clusters, switch to map view for geography, then use site pages for practical context and related places.