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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).

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.^[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

Empire State Building

Golden Gate Bridge

The Victoria Falls, the world's largest water fall

CN Tower

Chichen Itza

Old City of Jerusalem

The Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights

Grand Canyon

The Great Barrier Reef

The London sewerage system's original Abbey Mills pumping station

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 but their writings have not survived, except as references. The seven wonders were:

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 about 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]
Typically representative are:^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]

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

The American Society of Civil Engineers compiled a list of wonders of the modern world:^[10]

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

New7Wonders Foundation

Main article: 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.^[11] Twenty-one finalists were announced January 1, 2006.^[12] 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.^[13] The results were announced on July 7, 2007, in Lisbon, Portugal :^[14]

Wonder	Date of construction	Location
Great Wall of China	Since 7th century BC^[15]	China
Petra	c.100 BCE	Jordan
Christ the Redeemer	Opened October 12, 1931	Brazil
Machu Picchu	c.1450 CE	Peru
Chichen Itza	c.600 CE	Mexico
Colosseum	Completed 80 CE	Italy
Taj Mahal	Completed c.1648 CE	India
Great Pyramid of Giza (Honorary Candidate)	Completed c.2560 BCE	Egypt

USA Today's New Seven Wonders

In November 2006 the American national newspaper USA Today in conjunction with the American television show Good Morning America revealed a list of New Seven Wonders as chosen by six judges.^[16] The wonders were announced one per day over a week on Good Morning America. An eighth wonder was chosen on November 24, 2006 from viewer feedback.^[17]

Number	Wonder	Location
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
5	Internet	Earth
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:^[18]

New7Wonders of Nature

Main article: 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.

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:^[19]

Seven Wonders of the Industrial World

Main article: 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:

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.^[20]^[21] 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.^[22]

Notes

^ Both the USA Today article and the Good Morning America broadcast described this wonder as "Jerusalem's Old City, Israel." However states and scholars alike are divided over the legal status of Jerusalem under international law. See Positions on Jerusalem.

References

^ Anon. (1993)The Oxford Illustrated Encyclopedia First Edition Oxford:Oxford University
^ ^a ^b I H Evans (reviser), Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (Centenary edition Fourth impression (corrected); London: Cassell, 1975), page 1163
^ ^a ^b Hereward Carrington (1880–1958), "The Seven Wonders of the World: ancient, medieval and modern", reprinted in the Carington Collection (2003) ISBN 0-7661-4378-3, page 14.
^ Edward Latham. A Dictionary of Names, Nicknames and Surnames, of Persons, Places and Things (1904), page 280.
^ Francis Trevelyan Miller, Woodrow Wilson, William Howard Taft, Theodore Roosevelt. America, the Land We Love (1915), page 201.
^ Palpa, as You Like it, page 67)
^ The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Crusades (2001, page 153))
^ 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.
^ New Seven Wonders^{[dead link]}
^ 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 July 31, 2010.
^ "CNN Natural Wonders". CNN. November 11, 1997. Retrieved July 31, 2010.
^ "Underwater Wonders of the World". Wonderclub. Retrieved August 31, 2010.
^ Hillman, Howard. "World's top 10 man-made travel wonders". Hillman Quality Publications. Retrieved July 7, 2007.
^ Hillman, Howard. "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.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Wonders of the World

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