This reference work contains short articles on places of religious and spiritual traditions; categories of interest include: places associated with a prophet, saint, or deity; sites of miracles, visions or rituals; tombs of saints; shrines; the ancestral or mythical abodes of the gods; places that manifest the energies or mystical powers of nature; places marked by evil that have been a turning point for a religious community; and one secular shrine, the Pere Lachaise Cemetery of Paris. There 13 sites from Africa; 16 from North & Central America; 3 from South America; 9 from Asia & the South Pacific; 7 from China & Korea; 17 from Northern, 22 from Southern and 40 from Western Europe; 14 from India, Sri Lanka & Nepal; 11 from Japan; 18 from the Middle East; and 3 from the Pacific.

Beginning with the Aachen Cathedral in Germany and continuing through the Zebrzygowska Chapel in Poland, each entry is one to three pages long and is followed by a list of two or three references. As with any reference work, the appendices are important, and the Encyclopeida of Sacred Places does a fine job of making these articles accessible by offering maps as well as a glossary, bibliography and index, and appendices organized by religious tradition, by country, and by inclusion on UNESCO's World Heritage List of Cultural Sites.

If anything could have improved this book it would have been more pictures (there are approximately 25 here for over 150 entries), and of course one wishes it were longer and more inclusive, but that is always the way with reference resources.