The Cathedral of Saint Mary of the See, better known as Seville Cathedral, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Seville. It was registered in 1987 by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, along with the adjoining Alcázar palace complex and the General Archive of the Indies. "See" refers to the episcopal see, i.e., the bishop's ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
After its completion in the early 16th century, Seville Cathedral supplanted Hagia Sophia as the largest cathedral in the world, a title the Byzantine church had held for nearly a thousand years. It is the third-largest church in the world as well as the largest Gothic church. The total area occupied by the building is 23,500 square meters. The Gothic section alone has a length of 126 meters, a width of 83 meters and its maximum height in the center of the transept is 37 meters. The total height of the Giralda tower from the ground to the weather vane is 96 meters. Since the world's two largest churches are not the seats of bishops, Seville Cathedral is still the largest cathedral in the world.