Pilgrimage Routes, Sacred Landscapes and Regional Identity: Reconstructing Historical Mobility through Maps and GIS

Abstract

Pilgrimage landscapes represent enduring expressions of cultural memory, religious practice, and regional identity, yet their spatial organization has received comparatively limited quantitative investigation at a global scale. This study examined the geographic distribution of UNESCO World Heritage Sites associated with sacred heritage to reconstruct potential historical pilgrimage mobility using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The analysis utilised the 2023 UNESCO World Heritage Sites database comprising 1,199 heritage properties distributed across five global regions. Relevant sacred heritage sites were identified through systematic classification of religious and cultural attributes, followed by spatial preprocessing and geospatial analysis using Python-based GIS techniques. Point mapping, Kernel Density Estimation, nearest neighbour analysis, and proximity-based network modelling were employed to identify sacred landscape clusters and infer potential historical pilgrimage connectivity. The findings revealed that sacred heritage sites exhibit a distinctly clustered spatial distribution, with the highest concentrations located in Europe, the Mediterranean, South Asia, and East Asia. Network reconstruction further indicated that geographically proximate sacred centres formed interconnected regional systems capable of supporting historical pilgrimage movement and sustained cultural interaction. The study demonstrates that GIS provides a reliable framework for interpreting spatial relationships among sacred heritage sites while contributing to a deeper understanding of historical mobility and regional identity. These findings offer practical implications for heritage conservation, cultural landscape management, and sustainable pilgrimage planning, while providing a reproducible methodological approach for future historical GIS investigations.