Route Builder: Centre — Baku

Heydar Aliyev Center. A cultural centre designed by Zaha Hadid and opened in 2012, which won the Design Museum's Design of the Year 2014 award. It houses a museum, exhibition halls and "Mini Azerbaijan", a display of models of the country's historic monuments.

Old City (Icherisheher). The walled historic core of Baku, with fortifications dating from 1138–1139 according to the reserve administration. Together with the Palace of the Shirvanshahs and the Maiden Tower it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2000. Its lanes hold mosques, bathhouses and around ten small museums.

Ateshgah Fire Temple. A 17th–18th-century temple courtyard in Surakhani, built over a natural gas seep. Its 21 inscriptions, mostly in Devanagari with some in Gurmukhi and Persian, mark it as a place of worship for Indian Hindu and Sikh communities. A central fire altar stands inside a pentagonal ring of 24 cells.

Yanar Dag (Burning Mountain). Natural gas seeping from a hillside burns continuously, with flames running about 15 m along the foot of a 200 m scarp. Since 2007 the site has been a state reserve near the village of Mammadli on the Absheron Peninsula. A small museum and an amphitheatre opened after the 2017–2019 renovation.

Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape (Gobustan National Historical-Artistic Reserve). A rocky plateau south-west of Baku with more than 6,000 rock engravings, caves and settlements from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Middle Ages. Near Boyukdash is a 1st-century AD Latin inscription left by the Roman Legio XII Fulminata under Emperor Domitian, described as the easternmost Latin inscription known. A petroglyph museum has operated at the entrance since 2011.

Gobustan Mud Volcanoes. A field of active mud volcanoes near Gobustan. According to Wikipedia, about 300 of the world's roughly 700 mud volcanoes are found in this area and the adjacent Caspian Sea. They are usually visited together with the Gobustan rock art.