This is a list of cultural heritage sites that have been damaged or destroyed accidentally, deliberately, or by a natural disaster. The list is sorted by continent, then by country.

Cultural heritage can be subdivided into two main types: tangible and intangible. Tangible heritage includes built heritage (such as religious buildings, museums, monuments, and archaeological sites) and movable heritage (such as works of art and manuscripts). Intangible cultural heritage includes customs, music, fashion, and other traditions.

Africa

Egypt

The Library of Alexandria was destroyed during the Palmyrene invasion of Egypt and the following Roman counterattack in the 3rd century. In 1168, the capital of Egypt, Fustat, was intentionally set ablaze by its own vizier to deny the invading Crusaders its wealth. The resulting fire burned for 54 days and left the city in ruins. The Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was gradually damaged and then destroyed by earthquakes from the 8th to the 14th centuries, collapsing around 1341. Between the 12th and 18th centuries, thousands of Egyptian mummies were ground up and sold as medicine. By the 19th century, mummies were no longer widely consumed for medicine but were still destroyed in Victorian-era “unwrapping parties” that unrolled mummies for entertainment at private events. A rock-cut portion of the Temple of Gerf Hussein was flooded by Lake Nasser. The building of the Institut d'Égypte, along with many documents located there, was burned down on 17 December 2011 during anti-government demonstrations of the Arab Spring. It reopened in December 2012. Villa Aghion, a modernist villa built by Auguste Perret in Alexandria, was demolished for redevelopment in 2014. In 2024, the Egyptian government began destroying parts of the 1200-year old Al-Qarafa Cemetery, part of the UNESCO Site of Old Cairo, in order to build a highway.

Libya

Various sites were vandalized, looted, or destroyed during the First Libyan Civil War. The tomb of Zuhayr ibn Qays, located at the As-Sahabah Mosque in Derna, was destroyed by the Islamic State in July 2012. Multiple Sufi shrines near Tripoli were destroyed by the Islamic State in March 2015 during the Second Libyan Civil War.

Madagascar

In November 1995 a fire broke out in the Rova of Antananarivo, a royal palace of the Merina Kingdom since the 17th century. The fire destroyed or severely damaged all of its buildings. The last two reconstruction phases started in 2010, and by July 2020 the entire structure had been refurbished.

Mali

Parts of the World Heritage Site of Timbuktu were intentionally destroyed in the aftermath of the 2012 Fall of Timbuktu.

Nigeria

During the Benin Expedition of 1897 the British Empire launched a military campaign against Benin City, the capital of the Kingdom of Benin, during which much of the city was burned and numerous artifacts were looted.

South Africa

The 2021 Table Mountain fire partially or completely gutted several significant buildings and collections in the University of Cape Town. This included: Mostert's Mill, which had been built in 1796 The university's Special Collections Library, which held over 1,300 collections and over 85,000 books and other items, including: The fire completely gutted the Library's Reading Room. The vast majority of the African Studies Published Print Collection (about 70,000 items) and the entirety of the African Studies Film Collection DVDs (about 3,500 items) were destroyed, along with documents relating to the university itself.

Sudan

Giuseppe Ferlini, an Italian physician, traveled to Meroë in 1834 in search of treasure. Using explosives, he dismantled the pyramids from the top down and destroyed more than 40 Nubian pyramids during his excavations. The Faras Cathedral was flooded by Lake Nasser. Some of the paintings were salvaged and are now located in the Faras Gallery at the National Museum in Warsaw. Most of the artifacts from the National Museum of Sudan were stolen or destroyed by the Rapid Support Forces between 2023 and 2025 during the Sudanese civil war.

Zimbabwe

The medieval city of Great Zimbabwe has faced the removal of gold and artifacts due to amateur digging by early colonial antiquarians. Further damage was caused by various reconstruction attempts and reckless behavior of visitors, as well as natural damage from vegetation growth, weathering, and settling of foundations.

Asia

Afghanistan

In March 2001, a pair of 6th-century monumental statues known as the Buddhas of Bamiyan were dynamited by the Taliban, which had declared them heretical idols.

Armenia

Kond Mosque in Yerevan was partially demolished in the 1960s. in 1990, another mosque was pulled down with a bulldozer.De Waal, Thomas. (2003) Black garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through peace and war. New York University Press. , . p. 79.

Azerbaijan

Multiple sites of Armenian cultural heritage were destroyed by the Azerbaijani authorities as part of their de-Armenization campaign: The Armenian cemetery in Julfa in the region of Nakhchivan was destroyed in December 2005. The Azerbaijani representative of Nakhchivan denied that there was an Armenian cemetery there in the first place. The Church of the Holy Virgin in Baku was demolished in 1992. The Kanach Zham of Shusha, located in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, was destroyed between December 2023 and April 2024.

Bahrain

At least 43 Shia mosques, including the ornate 400-year-old Amir Mohammed Braighi Mosque and many other religious structures, were destroyed by the Bahraini government during the Bahraini uprising of 2011.

Bangladesh

Several landmarks associated with the secular leader of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, were destroyed or damaged in arson attacks and looting that followed the non-cooperation movement. The destroyed landmarks included his former residence in Dhaka, which had been converted into the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum, as well as the Mujibnagar Memorial Complex. Other cultural institutions were also destroyed, including the 19th-century Bir Chandra Public Library in Comilla.

Cambodia

The Roman Catholic Cathedral of Phnom Penh was the first building to be destroyed by the Khmer Rouge after the establishment of their regime. Our Lady of the Assumption Cathedral was destroyed in 1975.

China

The Famen Temple went through several periods of destruction. First erected during the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220), it was destroyed during the rule of the Northern Zhou dynasty (557–581). After being rebuilt, it was destroyed again by an earthquake during the Longqing years (1567–1572) of the Ming dynasty. After another reconstruction, it was destroyed for the third time during the Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976. The present structure was completed in 1987 and opened to the public as a museum in 1988. More than 4,600 Buddhist temples were destroyed across the empire during the systematic persecution of Buddhists in 845 by the Taoist Emperor Wuzong of Tang.Old Book of Tang 《旧唐书·武宗纪》（卷一八上）："还俗僧尼二十六万五百人，收充两税户""收奴婢为两税户十五万人"。 In 955, Emperor Shizong of the Later Zhou ordered the systematic destruction of Buddha statues for copper to mint coins, which led to 3,336 of China's 6,030 Buddhist temples being destroyed. Chang'an, a historical capital of several ancient Chinese empires, was occupied and ravaged during the Huang Chao rebellion (874–884). Chang'an never recovered after this obliteration, and its decline was followed by the fall of the Tang dynasty. Zhu Wen, Huang Chao's former lieutenant, completed the destruction by dismantling Chang'an and using the gathered materials to build the subsequent capital city of Luoyang. In 1739, the Pagoda of Chengtian Temple was destroyed after a large earthquake struck the city of Yinchuan. The pagoda was restored in 1820. The Porcelain Tower of Nanjing, which dates back to the 15th century, was destroyed over the course of the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864). A modern life-size replica was built in 2015.Spence, Jonathan D. (1996) God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan. New York. . Much of the Old Summer Palace, a Qing-era imperial palace, was set on fire and sacked during the Second Opium War in 1860. The palace was later sacked again and destroyed by the Eight-Nation Alliance when they invaded Beijing. Buddhist murals at the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves were damaged by the local Muslim population. The eyes and mouths, in particular, were often gouged out. Pieces of murals were also broken off for use as fertilizer by the locals. Beijing city fortifications, which date back to the 15th–16th century, were destroyed during the decline of the Qing dynasty in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They were severely damaged in the Boxer Rebellion (1898–1901), with the gate towers and watchtowers destroyed and troops of the Eight-Nation Alliance tearing down much of the outer city walls. After the collapse of the Qing in 1912 and the end of the Republic of China in 1949, the fortifications were dismantled to build modern ring roads around Beijing. Today, nothing of the outer city remains intact. In 1921, Buddhist murals at the Mogao Caves were damaged and vandalized by White Russian soldiers fleeing the Russian Civil War. More Buddhist murals were vandalized by Muslims during the Kumul Rebellion in Xinjiang in the 1930s. The White Horse Temple in Luoyang, the oldest Buddhist temple in China, was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Some historical artifacts are still missing. A shrine dedicated to Wei Yan was destroyed by the Chinese government in 1968. A stone tablet that contained the record of his presence was lost after the demolition. The shrine was rebuilt in 1995. Yongdingmen, the former front gate of the outer city wall of the Beijing city fortifications, which dates back to 1553, was demolished in the 1950s to make way for the new road system. It was rebuilt in 2005. The Gate of China in Beijing was demolished by the Chinese government in 1954 to make way for the expansion of Tiananmen Square. The Chairman Mao Memorial Hall occupies the former site of the gate. Historical neighborhoods of Beijing and Nanjing were razed during the development of the cities. More than 30,000 items compiled from various archaeological and historic sites and listed by the National Cultural Heritage Administration of China were destroyed during the country's development. Destroyed heritage sites include the old town in Dinghai, the old town of Laoximen in Shanghai, a centuries-old market street in Qianmen, and a section of the Great Wall of China. The construction of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River caused water levels to rise, destroying entire cities and historical locations along the river. In 2016, the Chinese government ordered the demolition of historical houses in Larung Gar, a large Tibetan Buddhist institution. By 2017, the old town of Kashgar had been destroyed by the Chinese government and replaced by a significantly smaller, lower-quality "theme park" version of the site. Multiple historic bridges, including the Lecheng Bridge and the Zhenhai Bridge, were destroyed during the 2020 China floods.

Georgia

In 2024, a fire destroyed the National Art Gallery in Sukhumi and all but 150 of the 4,000 paintings in its collection.

India

The Somnath temple was destroyed multiple times. In 1024, the Afghan ruler Mahmud of Ghazni plundered the temple and broke its jyotirlinga. In 1299, Alauddin Khalji's army under the leadership of Ulugh Khan defeated Karandev II and sacked the (rebuilt) Somnath temple. By 1665, the rebuilt temple was once again damaged by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. In 1702, he ordered that the temple be demolished completely if Hindus had revived worship there.