St. Martin's Cathedral, Utrecht

Frontiers of the Roman Empire -- The Lower German Limes: Utrecht-Domplein
UNESCO World Heritage Site
View of the cathedral and tower
LocationUtrecht, Netherlands
CriteriaCultural: (ii), (iii), (iv)
Reference1631
Inscription2021 (44th Session)
St Martin's Cathedral, Utrecht, buttresses as seen from SE

St. Martin's Cathedral, Utrecht, or Dom Church (Dutch: Domkerk), is a Gothic church dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours, which was the cathedral of the Diocese of Utrecht during the Middle Ages. It is the country's only pre-Reformation cathedral, but has been a Protestant church since 1580.

It was once the Netherlands' largest church, but the nave collapsed in a storm in 1674 and has never been rebuilt, leaving the tower isolated from the east end.

The building is the one church in the Netherlands that closely resembles the style of classic Gothic architecture as developed in France. All other Gothic churches in the Netherlands belong to one of the many regional variants. Unlike most of its French predecessors, the building has only one tower, the 112-metre-high (367 ft) Dom Tower, which is the hallmark of the city.

In the joint 2021, 2022 session of the World Heritage Committee the cathedral, Dom Tower, and the Domplein was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the Lower Germanic Limes, for its Roman archaeological remains within the square.


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