The Hill of Crosses is a pilgrimage site about 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) north of Šiauliai in northern Lithuania. Crosses were first placed there around 1831, after the November Uprising, when families who could not find the bodies of fallen rebels set up symbolic crosses on a former hill fort.
No single builder is named. Catholic pilgrims have brought crosses, statues and other objects over generations. Estimates reached about 55,000 crosses in 1990 and over 100,000 in 2006. Soviet authorities bulldozed the site three times, and the KGB guarded the hill. Pope John Paul II visited on September 7, 1993.
Lithuania designated it a national cultural monument on May 19, 1998. The Franciscan order governs the site. About 324,000 people visited in 2019.
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