Wonders of the World
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, and was based on guide-books popular among Hellenic sight-seers and only includes works located around the Mediterranean rim. The number seven was chosen because the Greeks believed it to be the representation of perfection and plenty and also because it was the number of the five planets known anciently plus the sun and moon. Many similar lists have been made.
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
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:
- Great Pyramid of Giza
- Hanging Gardens of Babylon
- Statue of Zeus at Olympia
- Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
- Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
- Colossus of Rhodes
- Lighthouse of Alexandria
The earliest lists had the Ishtar Gate as the seventh wonder of the world instead of the Lighthouse of Alexandria. The list known today was compiled in the Middle Ages—by which time many of the sites were no longer in existence. Today, 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]" 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.
- Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa
- Great Wall of China
- Porcelain Tower of Nanjing
- Hagia Sophia
- Leaning Tower of Pisa
Other sites sometimes included on such 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
|Wonder||Date started||Date finished||Location|
|Channel Tunnel||December 1, 1987||May 6, 1994||Strait of Dover, between the United Kingdom and France|
|CN Tower||February 6, 1973||June 26, 1976, tallest freestanding structure in the world 1976–2007.||Toronto, Ontario, Canada|
|Empire State Building||January 22, 1930||May 1, 1931, Tallest structure in the world 1931–1967. First building with 100+ stories.||New York, NY, U.S.|
|Golden Gate Bridge||January 5, 1933||May 27, 1937||Golden Gate Strait, north of San Francisco, California, U.S.|
|Itaipu Dam||January 1970||May 5, 1984||Paraná River, between Brazil and Paraguay|
|Delta Works/ Zuiderzee Works||1920||May 10, 1997||Netherlands|
|Panama Canal||January 1, 1880||January 7, 1914||Isthmus of Panama|
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. Twenty-one finalists were announced January 1, 2006. 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. The results were announced on July 7, 2007, in Lisbon, Portugal:
|Wonder||Date of construction||Location|
|Great Wall of China||Since 7th century BC||China|
|Petra||c. 100 BC||Jordan|
|Christ the Redeemer||Opened October 12, 1931||Brazil|
|Machu Picchu||c. AD 1450||Peru|
|Chichen Itza||c. AD 600||Mexico|
|Colosseum||Completed AD 80||Italy|
|Taj Mahal||Completed c. AD 1648||India|
|Great Pyramid of Giza (Honorary Candidate)||Completed c. 2560 BC||Egypt|
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.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.
|1||Potala Palace||Lhasa, Tibet, China|
|2||Old City of Jerusalem||Jerusalem[n 1]|
|3||Polar ice caps||Polar regions|
|4||Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument||Hawaii, United States|
|6||Mayan ruins||Yucatán Peninsula, México|
|7||Great Migration of Serengeti and Masai Mara||Tanzania and Kenya|
|8||Grand 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:
- Grand Canyon
- Great Barrier Reef
- Harbor of Rio de Janeiro
- Mount Everest
- Parícutin volcano
- Victoria Falls
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.
- Iguazu Falls
- Jeju Island
- Komodo Island
- Puerto Princesa Underground River
- Table Mountain
- Halong Bay
- Amazon Rainforest
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:
- Belize Barrier Reef
- Great Barrier Reef
- Deep-Sea Vents
- Galápagos Islands
- Lake Baikal
- Northern Red Sea
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. In 2003 the BBC made a seven-part documentary series on the book, with each episode dramatising the construction of one of the wonders. The seven industrial wonders are:
- SS Great Eastern
- Bell Rock Lighthouse
- Brooklyn Bridge
- London sewerage system
- First Transcontinental Railroad
- Panama Canal
- Hoover Dam
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. 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.
Seven Wonders of the Solar System
- The Great red spot
- The Asteroid belt
- The surface of the Sun
- The Oceans of Earth
- The Rings of Saturn
- Olympus Mons
- Eighth Wonder of the World
- World Heritage List – a list of over 900 sites deemed by UNESCO to be of "outstanding universal value"
- National Seven Wonders
- Seven Wonders of Fore (Fore Abbey, Ireland)
- Geography portal
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- Palpa, as You Like it, page 67)
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- The Rough Guide To England (1994, page 596))
- The Catholic Encyclopedia, v.16 (1913), page 74
- "American Society of Civil Engineers Seven Wonders". Asce.org. July 19, 2010. Retrieved August 30, 2010.
- com/index.php?id=3&L=0 New Seven Wonders[dead link]
- com/index.php?id=306 Finalist Page[dead link]
- "Egypt Angered at New Wonders Idea". Home. bellsouth.net. January 1, 1985. Retrieved July 31, 2010.
- "Reuters via ABC News Australia "Opera House snubbed as new Wonders unveiled" 7 July 2007". Australia: ABC. July 8, 2007. Retrieved July 31, 2010.
- "Great Wall of China". Encyclopædia Britannica.
- "New Seven Wonders panel". USA Today. October 27, 2006. Retrieved July 31, 2010.
- Clark, Jayne (December 22, 2006). "The world's 8th wonder: Readers pick the Grand Canyon". USA Today. Retrieved May 3, 2013.
- wonders/ "CNN Natural Wonders". CNN. November 11, 1997. Retrieved July 31, 2010.
- "Underwater Wonders of the World". Wonderclub. Retrieved August 31, 2010.
- Hillman, Howard. htm#_vtop "World's top 10 man-made travel wonders". Hillman Quality Publications. Retrieved July 7, 2007.
- Hillman, Howard. htm#_vtop "World's top 10 natural travel wonders". Hillman Quality Publications. Retrieved July 7, 2007.
- Clark, Ronald W. (1980). Wonders of the World. Artus Publishing Company Ltd. ISBN 978-0-668-04932-0.
- Seven Wonders of the Solar System Video:
- Ash, Russell, "Great Wonders of the World". Dorling Kindersley. 2000. ISBN 978-0-7513-2886-8
- Cox, Reg, and Neil Morris, "The Seven Wonders of the Modern World". Chelsea House Publications: Library. October 2000. ISBN 0-7910-6048-9
- Cox, Reg, Neil Morris, and James Field, "The Seven Wonders of the Medieval World". Chelsea House Publications: Library. October 2000. ISBN 0-7910-6047-0
- D'Epiro, Peter, and Mary Desmond Pinkowish, "What Are the Seven Wonders of the World? and 100 Other Great Cultural Lists". Anchor. December 1, 1998. ISBN 0-385-49062-3
- Morris, Neil, "The Seven Wonders of the Natural World". Chrysalis Books. December 30, 2002. ISBN 1-84138-495-X
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Seven Wonders of the World|
- Seven Wonders of the Modern World – a list of modern wonders compiled by the American Society of Civil Engineers