Some of these still draw thousands at dawn, while others are lit for a few minutes a year with almost nobody there to see it.
1StonehengeWiltshire circle aligned on the midsummer sunrise and the midwinter sunset, open to crowds on solstice morning.
2Pyramids of GizaSeen from the Sphinx at the summer solstice, the sun sets between the pyramids of Khufu and Khafre.
3NewgrangeIrish passage tomb whose roof-box lets the winter solstice sunrise flood the inner chamber.
4MaeshoweOrkney chambered cairn lit by the setting sun for a few weeks around the winter solstice.
5KarnakLuxor temple complex whose main axis lines up with the winter solstice sunrise.
6Chaco CanyonAncestral Puebloan centre in New Mexico where a sun dagger on Fajada Butte marks the solstices.
7Machu PicchuInca citadel whose Temple of the Sun window catches the June solstice sunrise.
8ChankilloThirteen towers on a Peruvian ridge that tracked the sun from one solstice to the next.
9Goseck CircleNeolithic ring ditch in Germany with gates facing the winter solstice sunrise and sunset.
10MnajdraMaltese megalithic temple where solstice light falls on the stones beside its doorway.
11Ale's StonesShip-shaped setting of 59 stones on a Swedish clifftop, aligned with the midsummer sunset.
12Cahokia MoundsMississippian city in Illinois whose Woodhenge post circle is used for public solstice sunrises.
13KokinoBronze Age hilltop observatory in North Macedonia with stone markers for the solstice sunrises.
14Bryn Celli DduAnglesey passage tomb whose chamber is lit by the summer solstice sunrise.
15Bighorn Medicine WheelStone wheel high in Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains with cairns pointing to the midsummer sunrise.
16HovenweepPuebloan towers on the Utah-Colorado border with openings that channel solstice light.
17DrombegWest Cork stone circle facing the setting sun at the winter solstice.
