Site type guide
Temple
Temple pages bring together built sacred spaces where ritual, architecture, deity presence, lineage, and pilgrimage meet.
410 temple sacred sites. Use the country and tradition filters to narrow in.
Atlas summary
Temple sacred sites overview
Temple 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 | 410 temple sacred sites across the current atlas. |
|---|---|
| Major countries | |
| Traditions | |
| UNESCO heritage | 20 UNESCO-tagged temple sites appear in this browse view. |
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410
Showing 337-384 of 410 sites in this site-type guide
Shusshakaji (出釈迦寺)
Zentsūji, Zentsūji, Kagawa, Japan
Temple 73 Shusshakaji sits at the foot of Mt Gahaishi in Zentsūji City, Kagawa. The legend here is intimate: a seven-year-old boy named Mao — later Kūkai — leapt from a...
Skorba Prehistoric Site
Malta
Skorba is the most informative site in Malta for understanding how Neolithic people actually lived....
Sōji-ji (総持寺)
Ibaraki, Ibaraki, Osaka, Japan
Sōji-ji is station 22 on the Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage, a Kōyasan Shingon-shū temple in Osaka dedicated to Senju Kannon....
Songgwangsa
Suncheon, Suncheon, Jeollanam-do, South Korea
Songgwangsa is the 'Sangha Jewel' of Korea's Three Jewel Temples, refounded in 1190 by the reformer Bojo Jinul as the seat of a movement to revive Korean Buddhist practice....
Sōrin-ji (宗隣寺)
Ube, Japan
Sōrin-ji — Shōkō-zan Sōrin-ji — is a Tang-Chinese-founded temple (777 CE) re-established in 1670 as the bodhi-temple of the Fukuhara clan, chief retainers of the Mōri...
Sri Velayuthar Temple
Batu Caves, Malaysia
At the top of the 272 steps, inside the vast limestone Temple Cave at Batu Caves, stands the Sri Velayuthar shrine, the presiding Murugan shrine of Malaysia's foremost...
Stanydale Temple
Bixter, United Kingdom
On a treeless hillside in western Shetland, a heel-shaped stone structure stands open to the sky....
Sugimoto-dera (杉本寺)
Kamakura, Japan
Sugimoto-dera is the first station of the Bandō Sanjūsankasho — Kamakura's oldest Buddhist temple, where three Eleven-Headed Kannon statues from successive Heian centuries...
Suisen-ji (水潜寺)
Minano, Japan
Suisen-ji — Nittaku-san Suisen-ji — is the 34th and final station of the Chichibu 34 Kannon Pilgrimage and the kechigan-jo (結願所, 'place where the vow is fulfilled') of...
Suishō-ji (Daishō-in)
Miyajima, Japan
Daishō-in — full classical name Takizan Suiseiji Daishōin (also Suishō-ji), commonly called Miyajima Daishō-in — is the daihonzan (head temple) of the Omuro branch of...
Suma-dera
Japan
Suma-dera, formally Joya-san Fukushō-ji, is the head temple (daihonzan) of its own Shingon sub-school — the Shingon-shū Sumadera-ha — and the principal site of Heike...
Ta' Ħaġrat Temples
Malta
Ta' Ħaġrat stands at the very beginning of the Maltese temple-building story — two megalithic structures raised from coralline limestone before metallurgy existed, before...
Tachibana-dera
Japan
Tachibana-dera is a Tendai temple set in the Asuka rice fields of Nara Prefecture, traditionally identified as the birthplace of Prince Shōtoku....
Tachiki-Kannon An’yō-ji
Japan
Tachiki Kannon An'yō-ji stands above the Seta River on a cliff that pilgrims reach by climbing roughly 800 stone steps....
Taima-dera
Japan
Taima-dera is a major dual-administered temple at the foot of Mount Nijō — held jointly by Shingon (Buzan branch) and Jōdo-shū....
Tairyū-ji (太龍寺)
Anan, Anan, Tokushima, Japan
Tairyū-ji, Temple 21 of the Shikoku 88, is one of the few sites Kūkai names in his own writings as the place of his decisive ascetic practice....
Taisan-ji
Japan
Sanshinzan Taisan-ji in Kobe's Nishi Ward holds a 1293 wooden main hall registered as a National Treasure of Japan — one of only a few such structures in the entire Hyōgo...
Taisan-ji (太山寺)
Matsuyama, Matsuyama, Ehime, Japan
Temple 52 of the Shikoku henro stands northwest of Matsuyama in cypress and bamboo forest....
Taisan-ji (泰山寺)
Imabari, Imabari, Ehime, Japan
Temple 56 of the Shikoku henro is one of the few personally founded by Kūkai. In 815 he led local villagers in flood-control work along the Sosha River, performed the...
Taiyū-ji
Japan
Founded by Kūkai in the early 9th century at the heart of what is now Osaka's Umeda entertainment district, Taiyū-ji is a Kōyasan Shingon temple whose principal Senju...
Tanema-ji (種間寺)
Haruno, Haruno, Kōchi, Japan
The thirty-fourth temple of the Shikoku 88 sits among rice paddies in Haruno, Kōchi....
Tanjō-ji (Okayama)
Kumenan, Japan
Tanjō-ji marks the literal birthplace of Hōnen Shōnin (1133–1212), founder of Jōdo-shū Pure Land Buddhism....
Tatsue-ji (立江寺)
Komatsushima, Komatsushima, Tokushima, Japan
Tatsue-ji is the Sōsekisho, the chief barrier temple of the Shikoku 88. Folk belief holds that pilgrims of unresolved sin or insincere intent cannot pass beyond this gate....
Tell Tayinat
Hatay, Amik Valley, c. 25–30 km E/SE of Antakya, Turkey
Tell Tayinat was the royal capital Kunulua of the Neo-Hittite Kingdom of Patina — a city of carved lion-flanked temples whose tripartite sacred architecture mirrors, in...
Tempio de Discuori
Agrigento, Sicilia, Italy
The Temple of Heracles is the oldest sacred structure in the Valle dei Templi, dating to approximately 510 BC....
Tempio di Apollo (C)
Selinunte, Sicilia, Italy
The Temple of Heracles is the oldest sacred structure in the Valle dei Templi, dating to approximately 510 BC....
Tempio di Atena (F)
Selinunte, Sicilia, Italy
The Temple of Heracles is the oldest sacred structure in the Valle dei Templi, dating to approximately 510 BC....
Tempio di Ercole
Agrigento, Sicilia, Italy
The Temple of Heracles is the oldest sacred structure in the Valle dei Templi, dating to approximately 510 BC....
Tempio di Giunone
Agrigento, Sicilia, Italy
The Temple of Juno stands at the highest point of the Valle dei Templi ridge, its 30 surviving columns receiving the first light of each Sicilian dawn....
Tempio di Hera (E)
Selinunte, Sicilia, Italy
The Temple of Heracles is the oldest sacred structure in the Valle dei Templi, dating to approximately 510 BC....
Tempio di Portuno, Rome, Italy
Rome, Lazio, Italy
The Temple of Portunus rises beside the Tiber where Rome's oldest river port once received the city's commerce....
Tempio di Zeus (G)
Selinunte, Sicilia, Italy
The Temple of Heracles is the oldest sacred structure in the Valle dei Templi, dating to approximately 510 BC....
Temple of Antas
Frùmini Majori/Fluminimaggiore, Sardinia, Italy
In a mountain valley of southwestern Sardinia, three civilizations constructed temples to the same deity under three different names. The Nuragic people called him Babai....
Temple of Apollo and Athena at Side
Manavgat, Antalya, Mediterranean Region, Turkey
The temples of Apollo and Athena at Side occupy the westernmost tip of a Mediterranean peninsula — a harbor sacred area where two Olympian deities once watched over every...
Temple of Apollo, Didyma
Turkey
At Didyma, the ancient world came for answers. Second only to Delphi as a prophetic sanctuary, the Didymaion was one of the largest temples ever built — its 122 Ionic...
Temple of Apollo, Syracuse
Syracuse, Sicily, Italy
Before the Parthenon rose in Athens, before Selinunte built its great sanctuaries, the colonists of Syracuse raised a temple to Apollo in stone....
Temple of Artemis
İzmir, Selçuk, Turkey
For over a millennium, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was the holiest sanctuary in the ancient Mediterranean world — and the largest building the Greeks ever constructed....
Temple of Athena at Assos
Turkey
Perched at 235 metres above the Aegean Sea on the acropolis of Assos, the Temple of Athena has occupied this promontory since approximately 540 BC — the sole surviving...
Temple of Concordia
Agrigento, Sicily, Italy
On a ridge overlooking the Mediterranean, the Temple of Concordia rises in near-perfect preservation, its thirty-four columns intact, its pediments complete, its...
Temple of Hatshepsut
Luxor, Luxor, Egypt
Hatshepsut declared herself pharaoh in a world that reserved that title for men....
Temple of Hecate at Lagina
Muğla, Yatağan, Turkey
Lagina holds the largest and most important sanctuary of Hecate ever built — a site where she was not a supplementary figure in someone else's pantheon but the principal...
Temple of Ptah
Luxor, Luxor, Egypt
Hidden in Karnak's northern corner, the Temple of Ptah offers what the vast complex cannot: intimate encounter....
Templo de la Luna
Cusco, Cusco, Peru
The Temple of the Moon is a natural cavern near Q'enqo containing a ceremonial table illuminated by an aperture above.
Templo del Sol y la Luna
Vilcashuaman, Ayacucho, Peru
At Vilcashuamán, the Spanish did not destroy the Inca Temple of the Sun so much as build on top of it....
Tenjōji
Japan
Mayasan Tenjō-ji sits near the summit of Mt. Maya, the Kobe-area mountain named for Mayadevi (Lady Maya, mother of the Buddha) — the temple's distinctive secondary focus...
Tennō-ji (天皇寺)
Sakaide, Sakaide, Kagawa, Japan
Temple 79 Tennō-ji in Sakaide is named for the body of an emperor — Sutoku, exiled after the Hōgen Disturbance of 1156 and dead in Sanuki in 1164....
Tenryu-ji Temple
Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan
At the foot of the Arashiyama mountains in western Kyoto, Tenryu-ji preserves a garden designed by Zen master Musō Soseki for a single purpose: meditation....
The Ruins of Paestum (Basilica of Hera)
Capaccio Paestum, Campania, Italy
Paestum stands as one of the most complete Greek sacred sites outside Greece itself....
Showing 337-384 of 410 sites
Key questions
Temple sacred-site questions
- What temple sacred sites are included?
- Temple sacred sites are places where this site type carries religious, ritual, cultural, or pilgrimage significance. This guide lists 410 in the current Pilgrim Map atlas.
- Where are these temple sites located?
- Major country clusters include Japan, India, Italy, Turkey, Nepal, Egypt.
- Which traditions are represented?
- Traditions represented here include Buddhism, Hinduism, Ancient Greek and Roman, Ancient Egyptian, Ancient, Pre-Columbian.
- Can I view temple 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.