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Archaeological & historic sites worth the detour

There are 14,002 archaeological & historic sites on Detourmap, spread over 172 countries — ancient ruins, tombs, ghost towns, shipwrecks, catacombs, mines, battlefields and crash sites. The most famous is Cairo in Egypt; United Kingdom has the deepest bench (1,708). The 96 best known are below.

On the map
14,002
Countries
172
Oldest
Isernia la Pineta 698,000 years ago
Little known
11,748 of 14,002

Archaeological & historic sites by country

Every country with at least one. Those with eight or more have their own page.

Inside archaeological & historic sites

The sub-kinds with enough entries for a page of their own.

Ghost towns1,494 Macabre sites2,188

Other kinds of detour

Nature

Archaeological & historic sites by continent

Europe8,330 Asia2,227 Africa587 North America1,907 South America258 Oceania154

Questions about this page

What counts as archaeological & historic sites on Detourmap?

Ancient ruins, tombs, ghost towns, shipwrecks, catacombs, mines, battlefields and crash sites. In Wikidata terms it is a fixed set of classes, so the layer is the same rule applied everywhere rather than a judgement made country by country.

Which country has the most archaeological & historic sites?

United Kingdom (1,708), United States (1,519) and Italy (1,110). That ranks how much Wikidata records, not what exists: a country whose sites are thinly documented in Wikipedia sits lower here than it should.

What is the most famous of them?

Cairo in Egypt. Capital city of Egypt.

Which is the oldest?

Isernia la Pineta, dated to 698,000 years ago. 2,639 of the 14,002 carry a founding date at all — for most natural features there is nothing to date.

Where does this information come from?

Every place is drawn from Wikidata (CC0), with photographs from Wikimedia Commons and a link to its English Wikipedia article. Selection is deterministic: a place is here because Wikidata files it under one of the classes this atlas carries and it has coordinates, a photo and an article. Nothing is written or chosen by an AI, and the ranking is simply how many Wikipedia language editions cover a place.