More than 4000 brick temples were built in Bengal during the 17th - 19th centuries. Some were built in royal capital cities like Bishnupur and Kalna, but most were built by merchants, minor landlords, priests, and administrators in their home villages. The temples are therefore scattered across hundreds of villages in the many districts of West Bengal and Bangladesh (and some in Jharkhand and Odisha).

In the 1970s and 1980s, researchers like Tarapada Santra, Hiteshranjan Sanyal, Amiyakumar Bandyopadhyay, David McCutchion, Sambhunath Mitra, and Pranab Ray travelled painstakingly across these districts to discover these temples, and document them with measurements and photographs. The lists below have been compiled from the work done by these pioneers, supplemented by my personal travels across West Bengal and Bangladesh since 2004, to photograph and study these temples in their current state. Only the most ornate, architecturally interesting or historically significant temples have been included in the lists below.