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 human-built 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 and in Mesopotamia. 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. Many similar lists have been made.

List Summary

Year Created	List Name	Created By
unknown	Seven Wonders of the Ancient World	unknown
1989	Seven Wonders of the Underwater World	CEDAM International
1994	American Society of Civil Engineers Wonders	American Society of Civil Engineers
1997	Seven Natural Wonders of the World	CNN
2006	USA Today’s New Seven Wonders	USA Today
2007	New 7 Wonders of the World	New 7 Wonders Foundation
2011	New 7 Wonders of Nature	New 7 Wonders Foundation
2014	New7Wonders Cities	New 7 Wonders Foundation

Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

The historian Herodotus (484 – c. 425 BC) and the scholar Callimachus of Cyrene (c. 305–240 BC), 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, El Giza, Egypt the only one that still exists.
• Colossus of Rhodes, in Rhodes, on the Greek island of the same name.
• Hanging Gardens of Babylon, in Babylon, near present-day Hillah, Babil province, in Iraq.
• Lighthouse of Alexandria, in Alexandria, Egypt.
• Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, in Halicarnassus, Achaemenid Empire, modern day Turkey.
• Statue of Zeus at Olympia, in Olympia, Greece.
• Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, in Ephesus (near the modern town of Selçuk in present-day Turkey).

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”, 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.

Typically representative are:

• Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa located in Alexandria, Egypt.
• Colosseum in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy.
• Great Wall of China built across the historical northern borders of China.
• Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey.
• Leaning Tower of Pisa in Pisa, Italy.
• Porcelain Tower of Nanjing located on the south bank of external Qinhuai River in Nanjing, People’s Republic of China.
• Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England.

Other sites sometimes included on such lists:

• Cairo Citadel is a medieval Islamic fortification in Cairo, Egypt.
• Cluny Abbey in Cluny, Saône-et-Loire, France.
• Ely Cathedral in Ely, Cambridgeshire, England.
• Taj Mahal on the south bank of the Yamuna river in the India city of Agra.

 

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”.

American Society of Civil Engineers Wonders

Wonder	Date started	Date finished	Location	Significance
Channel Tunnel	December 1, 1987	May 6, 1994	Strait of Dover, between the United Kingdom and France	The longest undersea portion of any tunnel in the world
CN Tower	February 6, 1973	June 26, 1976	Toronto, Ontario, Canada	Tallest freestanding structure in the world 1976–2007
Empire State Building	March 17, 1930	April 11, 1931	New York City, New York, United States	Tallest structure in the world 1931–1954, tallest freestanding structure in the world 1931–1967, tallest building in the world 1931–1970, first building with 100+ stories
Golden Gate Bridge	January 5, 1933	May 27, 1937	Golden Gate Strait, north of San Francisco, California, United States.	The longest suspension bridge main span in the world from 1937 to 1964
Itaipú Dam	January 1970	May 5, 1984	Paraná River, between Brazil and Paraguay	The largest operating hydroelectric facility in the world in terms of annual energy generation
Delta and Zuiderzee Works	1920	May 10, 1997	Zeeland, South Holland, North Holland, Friesland and Flevoland, Netherlands	The largest hydraulic engineering project undertaken by the Netherlands during the 20th century
Panama Canal	January 1, 1880	January 7, 1914	Isthmus of Panama	One 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 list of “New Seven Wonders” as chosen by six judges. The Grand Canyon was added as an eighth wonder on November 24, 2006, from viewer feedback.

USA Today‘s New Seven Wonders

Wonder	Location
Potala Palace	Lhasa, Tibet
Old City of Jerusalem	Israel and Palestine
Polar ice caps	Polar regions
Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument	Hawaii, United States
Internet
Mayan ruins	Yucatán Peninsula, México
Great Migration of Serengeti and Masai Mara	Tanzania and Kenya
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 in 1997:

• Aurora in the high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic).
• Grand Canyon in Arizona, United States.
• Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Queensland, Australia.
• Harbor of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
• Mount Everest on the border of Nepal and China.
• Parícutin volcano located in the Mexican state of Michoacán, Mexico.
• Victoria Falls on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe.

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 through online votes. The Great Pyramid of Giza, the only remaining of the Seven Ancient Wonders, was not one of the winners announced in 2007 but was added as an honorary candidate.

Wonder	Date of construction	Present-day 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

 

New7Wonders of Nature

New7Wonders of Nature (2007–2011), 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 on the border of the Argentine province of Misiones and the Brazilian state of Paraná.
• Hạ Long Bay in Quang Ninh Province, Vietnam.
• Jeju Island in the Jeju Province of South Korea.
• Puerto Princesa Underground River in Palawan, Philippines
• Table Mountain overlooking the city of Cape Town in South Africa.
• Komodo one of the 17,508 islands that comprise the Republic of Indonesia.
• Amazon rainforest located in Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and France (French Guiana)

New7Wonders Cities

New7Wonders Cities is the third global vote organized by New7Wonders.

• Durban, South Africa
• Vigan, Philippines
• Havana, Cuba
• Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
• Beirut, Lebanon
• Doha, Qatar
• La Paz, Bolivia

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:

• Palau.
• Belize Barrier Reef, Belize.
• Great Barrier Reef, Australia.
• Deep-Sea Vents.
• Galápagos Islands, Republic of Ecuador.
• Lake Baikal, Russia
• Northern Red Sea, bordered by Saudi Arabia and Yemen on the eastern shore, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea and Djibouti on the western shore.

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 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:

• SS Great Eastern
• Bell Rock Lighthouse, off the coast of Angus, Scotland.
• Brooklyn Bridge, New York City, United States.
• London sewerage system, serving London, England.
• First Transcontinental Railroad in the United States.
• Panama Canal, Panama.
• Hoover Dam, on the border between Nevada and Arizona in the United States.

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.

• Enceladus, a moon of Saturn
• The Great red spot of Jupiter
• The Asteroid belt
• The surface of the Sun
• The Oceans of Earth
• The Rings of Saturn
• Olympus Mons on Mars

Other lists of wonders of the world

• Many authors and organisations have composed lists of the wonders of the world that have been published in book or magazine form.
• Seven Wonders of the World is a 1956 film in which Lowell Thomas searches the world for natural and artificial wonders and invites the audience to try to update the ancient Wonders of the World list.