Fifteen years after proposing a first geographical analysis of the emblematic places of nations, I now question the topicality of my analysis and reflect on its pertinence considering the emergent territorialities. After recalling the content of this analysis for the national scale, I propose to test its pertinence with respect to other types of collective arrangement of social and institutional life. I argue that: (1) sub-national entities and large cities, which are promoted by decentralization and metropolization, have widely used similar tools for building their own emblematic places; (2) at a global scale, the analysis seems more complex and the processes diverse; as an example, I examine the making and the meanings of World Heritage Sites. The paper eventually suggests that the ongoing globalization promotes places that have various emblematic and symbolic meanings, which vary according to the scales within which they are embedded.