Check out how TripAdvisor users rank the world’s most stunning buildings
Few details convey the essence of a place like its architecture. Often developed in a national tradition to reflect the needs and desires of the people, a great building captures a moment in a country’s history while weathering the ages and assuming new surrounding contexts. And they sure make inspiring postcards!
Many people use the sight of a beautiful building as inspiration for how to remodel their own home.
Angi wants to deliver that inspiration without the need for a real-life world tour. So, we researched TripAdvisor reviews from 132 countries and every U.S. state for mentions of the word “beautiful.” Then, we identified the buildings with the most mentions to be the most beautiful in their respective regions. Let’s take a look at the most beautiful building in every country, according to TripAdvisor reviews.
Barcelona’s Basilica de la Sagrada Familia is the world’s most beautiful building, with 16,104 mentions of the word “beautiful” in TripAdvisor reviews.
Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Paris in France is the second most beautiful building in the world, with 12,931 mentions on TripAdvisor.
Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina, is the most beautiful building in the U.S. and the third most beautiful in the world, with 9,609 mentions.
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The TripAdvisor-ing public has a distinct preference for religious and gothic-tinged structures, such as Saint Mary’s Basilica in Kraków, Poland, which has plenty of both while remaining unique. Parliaments, rail stations, and castles also make a good show, but only one post office: the Central Post Office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, which is said to be even more beautiful inside than out.
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Beauty may rest in the eye of the beholder, but 16,104 beholders can’t be wrong. That’s the number of reviewers who have mentioned the beauty of the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain, making it the most beautiful building in the world. It is among 14 places of worship in the top 20 buildings.
The rest are civic or historical buildings in a range of styles from Châteauesque to Beaux-Arts, including the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, which was built in the rococo style for the royal Habsburgs in the 18th century and later remodeled externally in the neoclassical style. Only two buildings (the Louvre and Hallgrímskirkja) are conspicuously modern, and the latter has substantial gothic references.
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America’s capitol buildings rival places of worship for the honor of the most beautiful building in each state. Nine of the 50 states have a top structure categorized as a government building. However, nearly half the buildings on the map are religious sites or places of worship. The landscape benefits from some of the most striking modernist architecture of the past century and a half. Frank Lloyd Wright’s concrete and steel “organic” Fallingwater home, cantilevered over a woodland waterfall, is the most beautiful building in Pennsylvania; Seattle Public Library is a post-modern marvel and the top spot in Washington state.
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The most beautiful building in the U.S. is Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina, according to our findings. America’s largest privately owned home is set against the Blue Ridge Mountains but cuts a European dash with its French Renaissance chateau styling by architect Richard Morris Hunt.
Along with Grand Central Terminal, reviews of Biltmore have substantially more mentions of its beauty than other top buildings. Biltmore has 9,609 and Grand Central has 8,270, while 14 of the top 20 have fewer than 2,000 mentions.
Reviewers ranked Grand Central Terminal, a 20th-century cathedral of transit, as New York’s most stunning structure and the second-most beautiful building in the U.S. Grand Central Terminal in New York City is a Beaux Arts-style colossus, sheltering 44 rail platforms between its marble-lined walls.
We began our analysis by searching for the word “beautiful” on TripAdvisor in 132 countries and each U.S. state, collecting a list of buildings with the word “beautiful” mentioned in user-submitted reviews.
We narrowed our analysis to buildings in the following categories: architectural buildings, churches and cathedrals, government buildings, religious sites, historic sites and points of interest.
The most beautiful building in each country and U.S. state is the building with the most mentions of the word “beautiful” in respective reviews. The top 20 global and U.S. lists are ranked by the number of mentions of the word “beautiful.” Our world analysis excluded buildings with fewer than 25 reviews. We also excluded attractions that serve as lookout points where most reviews referenced the “beautiful views” as opposed to the building itself.
We collected world data between December 2021 and January 2022, and U.S. state data in August 2022.
