Tennessee's 113 Churches on the National Register of Historic Places

113 Tennessee churches in the Churches List directory hold National Register of Historic Places listings. The state's first church listing from this directory came July 8, 1970: First Presbyterian Church of Nashville, the 1851 Egyptian Revival sanctuary whose winged-sun portico remains the most architecturally singular church interior in the state.

The big-four counties hold half the list: Shelby (Memphis) leads with 13 register-listed churches, Davidson (Nashville) and Hamilton (Chattanooga) hold 12 each, and Knox (Knoxville) holds 9. The remainder spreads across the small-town courthouse squares of Middle Tennessee, where Maury and Marion counties hold 5 listings apiece.

The complete list of Tennessee churches on the National Register

The table lists all 113 Tennessee congregations in this directory whose buildings hold National Register of Historic Places listings as of June 11, 2026. Click a column to sort; the county menu filters the list.

When did Tennessee churches enter the National Register?

Tennessee shows a two-wave pattern: 34 listings in the 1980s, then a second wave of 27 in the 2000s. The second wave is the more interesting one; it tracks the state's civil-rights-era church surveys and the rehabilitation-tax-credit applications of downtown congregations in Memphis and Chattanooga. The 2010s added 13, and 5 listings have arrived since 2020.

Which Tennessee counties hold the most register-listed churches?

Where the register-listed churches stand: the map

How this list was assembled

The list joins the Churches List directory (10,471 Tennessee congregations as of June 11, 2026) against the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places database by building location and name. 113 matches hold as of the snapshot date; the earliest Tennessee church listing dates to 1970. A register listing covers the building, not the congregation, and some listed buildings house congregations younger than the walls. Corrections are applied through the corrections page.

Related reading in The Letter: the Nashville church guide covers Davidson County's 12 register-listed buildings in their city context, and Memphis's 297 Baptist congregations covers Shelby County's church landscape. The Tennessee state page lists all 10,471 Tennessee churches.