Wonders of the World

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This article is about natural and constructed phenomena and structures of the world. For other uses of "Wonders of the World", see Wonders of the World (disambiguation).
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (from left to right, top to bottom): Great Pyramid of Giza, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, Statue of Zeus at Olympia, Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (also known as the Mausoleum of Mausolus), Colossus of Rhodes, and the Lighthouse of Alexandria as depicted by 16th-century Dutch artist Maarten van Heemskerck.
Various lists of the Wonders of the World have been compiled from antiquity to the present day, to catalogue the world's most spectacular natural wonders and manmade structures.
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is the first known list of the most remarkable creations of classical antiquity; it was based on guidebooks popular among Hellenic sightseers and only includes works located around the Mediterranean rim. The number seven was chosen because the Greeks believed it represented perfection and plenty, and because it was the number of the five planets known anciently, plus the sun and moon.[1] Many similar lists have been made.

Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

Main article: Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
The Great Pyramid of Giza, the only wonder of the ancient world still in existence
The Colosseum in Rome
The Great Wall of China
Hagia Sophia
Stonehenge
Machu Picchu
Taj Mahal
Empire State Building
Golden Gate Bridge
The Victoria Falls contain the largest sheet of falling water in the world in terms of area
The Great Barrier Reef
CN Tower
Chichen Itza
Old City of Jerusalem
The Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights
Grand Canyon
The London sewerage system's original Abbey Mills pumping station
The Sydney Opera House
The historian Herodotus (484 – ca. 425 BCE), and the scholar Callimachus of Cyrene (ca. 305 – 240 BCE) at the Museum of Alexandria, made early lists of seven wonders. Their writings have not survived, except as references.
The classic seven wonders were:
The only ancient world wonder that still exists is the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Lists from other eras

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, some writers wrote their own lists with names such as Wonders of the Middle Ages, Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages, Seven Wonders of the Medieval Mind, and Architectural Wonders of the Middle Ages. However it is unlikely that these lists originated in the Middle Ages because the word medieval was not invented until the Enlightenment-era, and the concept of a Middle Age did not become popular until the 16th century. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable refers to them as "later list[s]"[2] suggesting the lists were created after the Middle Ages.
Many of the structures on these lists were built much earlier than the Medieval Ages, but were well known.[3][4]
Typically representative are:[2][3][5][6]
Other sites sometimes included on such lists:

Recent lists

Following in the tradition of the classical list, modern people and organisations have made their own lists of wonderful things ancient and modern. Some of the most notable lists are presented below.

American Society of Civil Engineers

In 1994, the American Society of Civil Engineers compiled a list of Seven Wonders of the Modern World, paying tribute to the "greatest civil engineering achievements of the 20th century":[11]
WonderDate startedDate finishedLocationSignificance
Channel TunnelDecember 1, 1987May 6, 1994Strait of Dover, between the United Kingdom and FranceThe longest undersea portion of any tunnel in the world.
CN TowerFebruary 6, 1973June 26, 1976Toronto, Ontario, CanadaTallest freestanding structure in the world 1976–2007.
Empire State BuildingJanuary 22, 1930May 1, 1931New York, NY, U.S.Tallest structure in the world 1931–1967. First building with 100+ stories.
Golden Gate BridgeJanuary 5, 1933May 27, 1937Golden Gate Strait, north of San Francisco, California, U.S.The longest suspension bridge main span in the world from 1937 to 1964.
Itaipu DamJanuary 1970May 5, 1984Paraná River, between Brazil and ParaguayThe second largest operating hydroelectric facility in the world in terms of annual energy generation.
Delta Works/ Zuiderzee Works1920May 10, 1997NetherlandsThe largest hydraulic engineering project undertaken by the Netherlands during the twentieth century.
Panama CanalJanuary 1, 1880January 7, 1914Isthmus of PanamaOne of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken.

USA Today's New Seven Wonders

In November 2006 the American national newspaper USA Today and the American television show Good Morning America revealed a new list of New Seven Wonders as chosen by six judges.[12] Good Morning America announced one wonder per day over a period of a week. An eighth wonder was chosen on November 24, 2006 from viewer feedback.[13]
NumberWonderLocation
1Potala PalaceLhasa, Tibet, China
2Old City of JerusalemJerusalem[n 1]
3Polar ice capsPolar regions
4Papahānaumokuākea Marine National MonumentHawaii, United States
5InternetEarth
6Mayan ruinsYucatán Peninsula, México
7Great Migration of Serengeti and Masai MaraTanzania and Kenya
8Grand Canyon (viewer-chosen eighth wonder)Arizona, United States

Seven Natural Wonders of the World

Similar to the other lists of wonders, there is no consensus on a list of seven natural wonders of the world, and there has been debate over how large the list should be. One of the many existing lists was compiled by CNN:[14]

New7Wonders of the World

In 2001 an initiative was started by the Swiss corporation New7Wonders Foundation to choose the New7Wonders of the World from a selection of 200 existing monuments.[15] Twenty-one finalists were announced January 1, 2006.[16] Egyptians were not happy that the only surviving original wonder, the Great Pyramid of Giza, would have to compete with the likes of the Statue of Liberty, the Sydney Opera House, and other landmarks, calling the project absurd. In response, Giza was named an honorary Candidate.[17] The results were announced on July 7, 2007, in Lisbon, Portugal:[18]
WonderDate of constructionLocation
Great Wall of ChinaSince 7th century BC[19]China
Petrac. 100 BCJordan
Christ the RedeemerOpened October 12, 1931Brazil
Machu Picchuc. AD 1450Peru
Chichen Itzac. AD 600Mexico
ColosseumCompleted AD 80Italy
Taj MahalCompleted c. AD 1648India
Great Pyramid of Giza (Honorary Candidate)Completed c. 2560 BCEgypt

New7Wonders of Nature

New7Wonders of Nature (2007–11), a contemporary effort to create a list of seven natural wonders chosen through a global poll, was organized by the same group as the New7Wonders of the World campaign.

New7Wonders Cities

New7Wonders Cities is the third global vote organized by New7Wonders.

Seven Wonders of the Underwater World

The Seven Underwater Wonders of the World was a list drawn up by CEDAM International, an American-based non-profit group for divers, dedicated to ocean preservation and research.
In 1989 CEDAM brought together a panel of marine scientists, including Dr. Eugenie Clark, to pick underwater areas which they considered to be worthy of protection. The results were announced at The National Aquarium in Washington DC by actor Lloyd Bridges, star of TV's Sea Hunt:[20]

Seven Wonders of the Industrial World

British author Deborah Cadbury wrote Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, a book telling the stories of seven great feats of engineering of the 19th and early 20th centuries.[21] In 2003, the BBC aired a seven-part docudrama exploring the same feats, with Cadbury as a producer. Each episode dramatised the construction of one of the following industrial wonders:[22]

Other lists of wonders of the world

Numerous other authors and organisations have composed lists of the wonders of the world. Travel writer Howard Hillman published two books on the subject, one with 10 man-made wonders, and one with 10 natural wonders.[23][24] British biographer, science writer, and novelist Ronald W. Clark published a book of man-made and natural wonders titled Wonders of the World, which lists 52 wonders, one for each week of the year.[25]

Seven Wonders of the Solar System

In a 1999 article, Astronomy magazine listed the Seven Wonders of the Solar System. This article was later made into a video.[26]

In popular culture

The Civilization series of computer games has featured many world wonders of all eras; these can be constructed by any civilization, regardless of which civilization did so in reality. In Civilization V, "natural wonders" such as Mount Fuji and Old Faithful were added. Similar mechanics of wonders are found in another video game series, Rise of Nations.
Board games following the Civilization mould have also allowed players to build a number of wonders from the ancient and modern world. These games include Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization and Patchistory, as well as the official Civilization board games.

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