Landmarks of Asia

42 to explore

• Watch Landmark Agra Fort Agra Fort is a huge red sandstone fortress beside the Yamuna River in Agra, India. The Mughal emperor Akbar began it in 1565. Its walls, about 2.5 kilometers around, protect palaces, halls and mosques added by later emperors. It was both an army base and a royal home.
• Watch Landmark Al-Aqsa Mosque Al-Aqsa Mosque stands at the southern end of a huge raised plaza in the Old City of Jerusalem. Built in the early 700s, it has a silver-gray dome, and the golden Dome of the Rock stands nearby. The plaza is important to Muslims and to Jews.
• Watch Landmark Al-Masjid al-Haram Al-Masjid al-Haram, the Great Mosque of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, was built around the Kaaba, a cube-shaped building that Muslims face when they pray. It is the most important place of pilgrimage in Islam. In 2026, 1,707,301 pilgrims came to Mecca for the hajj, and the mosque can hold up to about one million worshippers.
• Watch Landmark Angkor Angkor, in northwestern Cambodia, was the capital of the Khmer Empire from the 9th to the 15th century. Its kings built city after city here, with scores of temples, such as Angkor Wat and the Bayon, and giant reservoirs and canals to water the rice fields. Today it covers about 400 square kilometers, and more than 100,000 people live in villages inside it.
• Watch Landmark Angkor Wat Angkor Wat, near the town of Siem Reap in Cambodia, was built in the 12th century by the Khmer king Suryavarman II. Britannica (2026) calls it the world's largest religious structure. It was built as a Hindu temple and later became a Buddhist place of worship.
• Watch Landmark Anuradhapura Anuradhapura, in north-central Sri Lanka, was the island's capital for more than 1,000 years. Its ruins include huge bell-shaped brick monuments called dagobas, monasteries, palaces and ancient reservoirs. It is an important place for Buddhists, and a World Heritage Site since 1982.
• Watch Landmark Baalbek Baalbek, in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, has some of the largest and best-preserved Roman temples ever built. For more than two centuries, builders raised enormous temples on a platform made of giant stone blocks. In a quarry nearby lies a carved block of about 1,650 tons that was never moved.
• Watch Landmark Babylon Babylon was one of the most famous cities of the ancient world, beside the Euphrates River in what is now Iraq. Kings like Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar II ruled from here. Today its ruins are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and about 85 percent of it has never been dug up.
• Watch Landmark Baikonur Cosmodrome Baikonur Cosmodrome is a huge rocket launch site on the flat grasslands of Kazakhstan. The Soviet Union began building it in secret in 1955. Sputnik 1, the first satellite, launched from here in 1957, and Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space, in 1961. Today Russia rents it from Kazakhstan, and crews have launched from it to the International Space Station as recently as 2025.
• Watch Landmark Borobudur Borobudur is a huge Buddhist monument in central Java, Indonesia, built about 1,200 years ago. It is shaped like a stepped pyramid around a small hill, with carved walls and 72 bell-shaped stupas on its round top terraces. For centuries it lay hidden under volcanic ash and plants, and today it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• Watch Landmark Burj Khalifa Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is 828 meters tall, the tallest building in the world (2026). It took about six years to build, from 2004 to 2010. Its Y-shaped plan, inspired by a desert flower, helps it stand up to strong winds.
• Watch Landmark Byblos Byblos, on the Mediterranean coast of Lebanon, is one of the oldest towns in the world where people have lived without a break. Its ruins stack up like layers of a cake: fishermen's huts, Phoenician temples and walls, a Roman theater and a Crusader castle. The Phoenician alphabet developed here.
• Watch Landmark Dome of the Rock The Dome of the Rock stands on a wide raised plaza in the Old City of Jerusalem. It was finished in 691 or 692, about 1,330 years ago, which makes it the oldest Islamic monument still standing. Its eight walls are covered in marble and mosaics, and its gilded dome, about 20 meters across, covers a large rock that is deeply important to Muslims.
• Watch Landmark Ephesus Ephesus was a great Greek and Roman city on the west coast of what is now Türkiye. Its ruins include ancient streets, a theater for nearly 25,000 people and the Library of Celsus, whose two-story front has been rebuilt. Archaeologists have been digging there since 1895.
• Watch Landmark Fatehpur Sikri Fatehpur Sikri, the "City of Victory," was built on a ridge near Agra, India, by the Mughal emperor Akbar from 1571. It was his capital until 1585. Its red sandstone palaces, halls and great mosque still stand, and its gateway, the Buland Darwaza, is 40 meters tall.
• Watch Landmark Forbidden City The Forbidden City in Beijing was built between 1406 and 1420 as the palace of China's emperors. Over about 500 years, 24 emperors came to the throne there. High walls and a wide moat surround it. Since 1925 it has been the Palace Museum, and it became a World Heritage Site in 1987.
• Watch Landmark Great Wall of China The Great Wall is not one wall but many walls, built over about 2,000 years across northern China. The best-kept part, built under the Ming emperors, runs about 8,850 kilometers, with watchtowers, gates and signal towers along the way.
• Watch Landmark Hagia Sophia Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was built in under six years, from 532 to 537, for the emperor Justinian. Its enormous dome seems to float on a ring of 40 windows. Over almost 1,500 years it has been a church, a mosque and a museum, and since 2020 it has been a mosque.
• Watch Landmark Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple) Harmandir Sahib, often called the Golden Temple, is the most important gurdwara, or place of worship, for Sikhs. It stands on a small island in a pool in Amritsar, India, and a marble causeway leads out to it. Its upper stories are covered in gilded copper, and its free kitchen serves meals to about 100,000 people a day.
• Watch Landmark Kiyomizu-dera Kiyomizu-dera is a Buddhist temple on the slope of Mount Otowa in Kyoto, Japan. The temple says it was founded in 778. Its Main Hall, rebuilt in 1633, has a famous wooden stage about 13 meters high, held up by 18 giant pillars joined without nails. The name means "pure water," after a waterfall on the grounds.
• Watch Landmark Mausoleum at Halicarnassus The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus was the tomb of Mausolus, ruler of Caria, in what is now southwestern Turkey. Built around 353 to 351 BCE, it was covered in sculptures by four famous Greek artists and became one of the Seven Wonders of the World. An earthquake probably brought it down, and its stones went into other buildings, but its name lives on in the word 'mausoleum'.
• Watch Landmark Mohenjo-daro Mohenjo-daro was the largest city of the Indus civilization, which UNESCO calls one of the world's three great ancient civilizations. Built of baked brick and flourishing by about 2500 BCE beside the Indus River, it had streets in a neat grid, houses with bathrooms and covered drains. Its ruins were found in 1922.
• Watch Landmark Nineveh Nineveh was the biggest city of the Assyrian Empire, on the east bank of the Tigris River in what is now Mosul, Iraq. About 2,700 years ago, King Sennacherib filled it with streets, canals and a palace of at least 80 rooms, and King Ashurbanipal collected a library of clay tablets. In 612 BCE the city was conquered and burned, and it never recovered.
• Watch Landmark Palmyra Palmyra is an ancient city built on an oasis in the Syrian desert. About 2,000 years ago it grew rich from caravans carrying goods between the Roman Empire and lands to the east. Its ruins, with a colonnaded street 1,100 meters long, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• Watch Landmark Persepolis Persepolis was a royal city of the Persian kings. King Darius I began it around 518 BCE on a huge terrace at the foot of a mountain in southwestern Iran. Its palaces had very tall, slender columns and walls carved with long parades of people bringing gifts. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• Watch Landmark Petra Petra, in southern Jordan, was the capital of the Nabataeans, who grew rich from trade in incense and spices. Many of its tombs and monuments are carved straight into red sandstone cliffs, and a narrow gorge called the Siq leads to its most famous facade, the Treasury.
• Watch Landmark Petronas Towers The Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, are two matching skyscrapers 452 meters tall, finished in 1998. Seen from above, each floor is shaped like an eight-pointed star, a pattern from Islamic art. A two-story skybridge joins them 170 meters above the ground, and from 1996 to 2003 they were counted as the tallest buildings in the world.
• Watch Landmark Potala Palace The Potala Palace rises from Red Mountain in Lhasa, high on the Tibetan Plateau, 3,700 meters above sea level. Its White Palace was finished in 1648 and its Red Palace in 1694. With more than 1,000 rooms, it was home to the Dalai Lamas and the seat of Tibet's government.
• Watch Landmark Prophet's Mosque The Prophet's Mosque in Medina, Saudi Arabia, began as the simple home and courtyard of the Prophet Muhammad, who helped build it after he came to Medina in 622. Rebuilt and enlarged many times, it now has a famous green dome over Muhammad's tomb, ten minarets and room for up to a million worshippers at the busiest times.
• Watch Landmark Samarra Samarra, on the Tigris River in Iraq, was the capital of the Abbasid caliphs, rulers of a huge Islamic empire, from 836 to 892. In that short time they built enormous mosques, palaces, canals and even racecourses. Because the city was left so early, its plan survives, and its Great Mosque still has a famous spiral minaret.
• Watch Landmark Shaki Shaki, also spelled Sheki, is a historic town in the forested Caucasus Mountains of Azerbaijan. After a flood of mud destroyed the old town in 1772, people rebuilt it higher up the valley, with houses, gardens, water channels and a khan's palace. Its wealth came from silk, and UNESCO made its historic center a World Heritage Site in 2019.
• Watch Landmark Sultan Ahmed Mosque The Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Istanbul was built between 1609 and about 1616 for the Ottoman ruler Sultan Ahmed I. Its central dome is ringed by half-domes and smaller domes, and six slender minarets rise around it. Many people call it the Blue Mosque because of the blue and green tiles and painted decoration inside. It is still a working mosque, where Muslims come to pray.
• Watch Landmark Susa Susa, in southwest Iran, is one of the most ancient places where towns first grew. People built there from more than 6,000 years ago until about 800 years ago, one town on top of another. It was the capital of the Elamites and later of the Persian king Darius I, whose great palace still lies in ruins there.
• Watch Landmark Taipei 101 Taipei 101 is a skyscraper in Taipei, Taiwan, 508 meters tall with its spire and 101 stories high. When it opened, it was the tallest building in the world. Inside hangs a 660-ton steel ball, a tuned mass damper, that helps steady the tower in typhoon winds and earthquakes.
• Watch Landmark Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal is a white marble tomb in Agra, India, beside the Yamuna River. The Mughal emperor Shah Jahan had it built in memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal. More than 20,000 workers spent about 22 years on the tomb, its gardens, a mosque and a great gateway.
• Watch Landmark Temple of Artemis at Ephesus The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. It was rebuilt several times, and its 6th-century BCE version was more than 300 feet long. After a fire in 356 BCE it was built again just as big. Today only scattered stones and one column remain.
• Watch Landmark Terracotta Army In 1974, farmers digging a well near Xi'an, China, found pieces of clay soldiers. Archaeologists uncovered an army of about 8,000 life-size soldiers and horses, made for the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a united China, who died in 210 BCE. The figures were once brightly painted, and each has its own face.
• Watch Landmark Three Gorges Dam The Three Gorges Dam crosses the Yangtze River in central China. It is 2,335 meters long and 185 meters high, and it can make more electricity than any other hydroelectric dam in the world. It also lets big ships travel far up the river, but building it meant that more than a million people had to move.
• Watch Landmark Topkapı Palace Topkapı Palace sits on a point of land where the Bosphorus Strait meets the sea in Istanbul. Sultan Mehmed II built it between 1460 and 1478, and for nearly 400 years it was the home of the Ottoman sultans and the center of their government. In 1924 it became a museum.
• Watch Landmark Umayyad Mosque The Umayyad Mosque, also called the Great Mosque of Damascus, was built between 705 and 715 by the ruler al-Walid I. Britannica calls it the earliest stone mosque still standing. It is one of the largest mosques in the world, with a vast courtyard, a long prayer hall and walls that once shone with mosaics.
• Watch Landmark Ur Ur was a great city of Sumer, in the south of what is now Iraq, founded more than 5,000 years ago. Twice it was the capital of an empire. Archaeologists found royal tombs full of gold treasures, streets of brick houses and a huge stepped temple tower called a ziggurat. When the Euphrates River moved away, the fields dried up and the city was abandoned.
• Watch Landmark Western Wall The Western Wall, in the Old City of Jerusalem, is the only remaining part of the huge wall that once held up the platform of the ancient Jewish Temple. More than 2,000 years old, it is a place of prayer and pilgrimage for Jewish people, and visitors come from all over the world.