Thailand

15 Best Religious Sites in Thailand

Wat Pho leads, and the rest of Thailand's best temples, churches and sacred sites follow, ranked by real visits.

Order reflects review volume from real travelers in Thailand. Refreshed monthly.

  1. Wat Pho

    Religious site · Bangkok

    Wat Pho is one of Bangkok's oldest and largest Buddhist temple complexes, standing on Rattanakosin Island directly south of the Grand Palace.

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  2. Wat Phra Chetuphon

    Religious site · Bangkok

    Wat Pho is one of Bangkok's oldest and largest temple complexes, and home to the breathtaking 46-metre gold-leafed Reclining Buddha, so large you shuffle along its length in a narrow hall, with the…

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  3. Wat Arun

    Religious site · Bangkok

    Wat Arun, known as the Temple of Dawn, is a striking Buddhist temple on the Thonburi bank of the Chao Phraya River.

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  4. Temple Of Dawn (Wat Arun)

    Religious site · Bangkok

    Wat Arun rises straight from the bank of the Chao Phraya River, its central spire (prang) encrusted with millions of fragments of coloured porcelain and seashell that catch the light.

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  5. Wat Phra Kaew

    Religious site · Bangkok

    Wat Phra Kaew, also known as the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, is the holiest Buddhist site in Thailand.

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  6. Wat Traimit

    Religious site · Bangkok

    Wat Traimit, also called the Temple of the Golden Buddha, houses a magnificent 5.5-ton solid gold statue of the Buddha, measuring nearly 3 meters tall.

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  7. Wat Saket

    Religious site · Bangkok

    Wat Saket, known as the Golden Mount, is a Buddhist temple built on a man-made hill in the old city of Bangkok.

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  8. The Golden Mount (Wat Saket)

    Religious site · Bangkok

    The Golden Mount (Wat Saket) is a hilltop temple offering one of the best panoramas of Bangkok's old city.

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  9. Wat Benchamabophit (The Marble Temple)

    Religious site · Bangkok

    Wat Benchamabophit, universally known as the Marble Temple, is one of Bangkok's most elegant and photogenic temples, a graceful early-20th-century masterpiece built largely from gleaming white Italian Carrara marble.

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  10. Wat Suthat

    Religious site · BangkokFree entry

    Wat Suthat Thepwararam, commonly called Wat Suthat, is one of Bangkok's oldest and most significant temples, located in the Phra Nakhon district.

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  11. Wat Bowonniwet Vihara

    Religious site · BangkokFree entry

    Wat Bowonniwet Vihara, also spelled Wat Bowonniwet, is a major Buddhist temple (wat) in the Phra Nakhon district of Bangkok.

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  12. Giant Swing

    Religious site · BangkokFree entry

    The Giant Swing, or Sao Ching Cha, is a striking red structure standing in front of Wat Suthat in Bangkok's Phra Nakhon district.

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  13. Wat Mangkon Kamalawat

    Religious site · BangkokFree entry

    Wat Mangkon Kamalawat, also known as Wat Leng Noei Yi, is one of the largest and most important Chinese Buddhist temples in Bangkok.

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  14. Ganesh Shrine

    Religious site · BangkokFree entry

    The Ganesh Shrine in Bangkok is a popular Hindu religious site situated within the bustling CentralWorld shopping complex in the Chidlom district.

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  15. Wat Rakang Kositaram

    Religious site · BangkokFree entry

    Wat Rakang Kositaram, often called the Temple of the Bells, is a serene Buddhist monastery located along the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok's Riverside district.

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Good to know

What is the best-known of the temples, churches and sacred sites in Thailand?

Wat Pho in Bangkok is the most reviewed, with 51,489 traveler reviews and a 4.6 rating. That makes it the safe choice if you are only fitting in one.

Which of Thailand's temples, churches and sacred sites is worth going out of your way for?

Wat Phra Chetuphon in Bangkok rates highest at 4.5 out of 5 across 51,368 reviews. Smaller crowds than the headline entry usually explain the gap.

Are any of these temples, churches and sacred sites free to visit?

Yes, 6: Wat Suthat, Wat Bowonniwet Vihara, Giant Swing and others. That is based on each place's own visiting information, not an assumption about the category.

How is this list of temples, churches and sacred sites ranked?

By how many travelers reviewed each place, filtered to those rated well enough to be worth your time, drawn from 582 tracked places in Thailand. No one pays to appear on it, and the order is refreshed monthly as new reviews land.

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