Angkor Wat

13.4125°N, 103.8670°E.

The largest religious monument on Earth by area, covering 162.6 hectares within a 200-metre-wide moat in northwestern Cambodia. Constructed by Khmer king Suryavarman II between approximately 1113 and 1150 CE as a Vishnu temple; converted to Buddhist use in the late 12th century. The central tower rises 65 metres above the temple platform; four smaller towers form a quincunx representing Mount Meru, the cosmic mountain of Hindu and Buddhist cosmology. The bas-relief galleries extend over 1,200 metres of continuous narrative carving, depicting the Battle of Kurukshetra, the Churning of the Sea of Milk, and Suryavarman's heaven and hell. The temple is precisely oriented to the west — atypical for Hindu temples and a primary argument for its dual function as a funerary monument. The Khmer Empire that built it disappeared by 1431 CE; the temple was never abandoned by its Buddhist monks.

They built the largest temple on Earth pointing the wrong way — and only the monks who repurposed it stayed.