Bagan


World Heritage Identification Number: 1588

World Heritage since: 2019

Category: Cultural Heritage

Transboundary Heritage: No

Endangered Heritage: No

Country: 🇲🇲 Myanmar

Continent: Asia

UNESCO World Region: Asia and the Pacific

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Bagan: A Sacred Landscape of Buddhist Art and Architecture

Bagan, officially known as Arakanese Pagan or Burmese Pagan, is a captivating city located in the Mandalay Region of Myanmar. It serves as a significant historical and cultural landmark, recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2019. The designation acknowledges Bagan's unique role as a testament to the peak of the Bagan civilization (11th – 13th centuries CE) and its status as the capital of a regional empire during this period.

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UNESCO Description of the World Heritage Site

Lying on a bend of the Ayeyarwady River in the central plain of Myanmar, Bagan is a sacred landscape, featuring an exceptional range of Buddhist art and architecture. The seven components of the serial property include numerous temples, stupas, monasteries and places of pilgrimage, as well as archaeological remains, frescoes and sculptures. The property bears spectacular testimony to the peak of Bagan civilization (11th -13th centuries CE), when the site was the capital of a regional empire. This ensemble of monumental architecture reflects the strength of religious devotion of an early Buddhist empire.

Encyclopedia Record: Bagan

Bagan is an ancient city and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Mandalay Region of Myanmar. From the 9th to 13th centuries, the city was the capital of the Pagan Kingdom, the first kingdom that unified the regions that would later constitute Myanmar. During the kingdom's height between the 11th and 13th centuries, more than 10,000 Buddhist temples, pagodas and monasteries were constructed in the Bagan plains alone, of which the remains of over 2200 temples and pagodas survive.

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Additional Site Details

Area: 5,005.49 hectares

UNESCO Criteria: (iii) — Unique or exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition
(iv) — Outstanding example of a type of building or landscape
(vi) — Directly associated with events or living traditions

Coordinates: 21.1488888889 , 94.8844444444

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Image of Bagan

© Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0 Resized from original.

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Nearby World Heritage Sites

Pyu Ancient Cities
176 km — Myanmar
Cultural Landscape of Old Tea Forests of the Jingmai Mountain in Pu’er
542 km — China
Historic Mosque City of Bagerhat
551 km — Bangladesh
The Sundarbans
596 km — Bangladesh
Sundarbans National Park
626 km — India

Country Information: Myanmar

Flag of Myanmar

Official Name: Republic of the Union of Myanmar

Capital: Naypyidaw

Continent: Asia

Population (2024): 54,500,091

Population (2023): 54,133,798

Population (2022): 53,756,787

Land Area: 652,670 sq km

Currency: Burmese kyat (MMK)

Country Data Sources

Last updated: January 18, 2026

Portions of the page Bagan are based on data from UNESCO — World Heritage List Dataset and on text from the Wikipedia article Bagan, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes made. Additional original content by World Heritage Explorer (WHE), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. WHE is not affiliated with UNESCO or the World Heritage Committee. Legal Notice. Privacy Policy.

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