This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Sacred architecture is a building or built structure that a tradition sets apart for religious use, worship, ritual, pilgrimage or the housing of a sacred object, distinct from a Sacred Site entry in that architecture entries cover the built structure itself, its design, materials and construction, while a sacred site entry covers a place's significance whether or not any structure was ever built there at all.
An entry records a structure's architectural form and its major elements, along with what those elements are understood to mean or accomplish within its tradition, since sacred architecture is rarely built only for shelter or display; a dome, a minaret, a spire or an axis aligned to a specific direction typically carries a purpose the tradition itself explains, whether astronomical, symbolic, or tied to how a ritual inside the building is meant to unfold.
The entry also records where a structure's present form differs from its original one, since sacred buildings are very often rebuilt, expanded or repurposed across centuries, sometimes passing between traditions entirely, and a structure's full architectural history, not only its current appearance, is frequently necessary to understand what any one part of it was originally built to do.