Various lists of the Wonders of the World have been compiled from antiquity to the present day, in order to catalogue the world's most spectacular natural features and human-built structures.
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is the oldest known list of this type, documenting the most remarkable human-made creations of classical antiquity; it was based on guidebooks popular among Hellenic sightseers and as such only includes works located around the Mediterranean rim and in the ancient Near East. The number seven was chosen because the Greeks believed it represented perfection and plenty, and because it reflected the number of planets known in ancient times (five) plus the Sun and Moon.[1]
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Main article: Seven Wonders of the Ancient World |
The Greek 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. These lists have not survived, however, except as references in other writings.
The classic Seven Wonders were:
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, some writers emulated the classical list by creating 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".[2] It is unlikely that any of these lists actually originated in the Middle Ages since the concept of a "Middle Age" did not become popular until at least the 16th century and the word "medieval" was not invented until the Enlightenment era. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable refers to them as "later list[s]",[3] suggesting the lists were created after the Middle Ages.
Many of the structures on these lists were built much earlier than the Middle Ages but were well known throughout the world.[4][5] Typically representative of such lists are:[3][4][6][7]
Other structures sometimes included on such lists include:
Following in the tradition of the classical list, modern people and organisations have made their own lists of wonderful things, both ancient and modern, natural and artificial. Some of the most notable lists are presented below.
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][12]
| Wonder | Date started | Date finished | Location | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Channel Tunnel | December 1, 1987 | May 6, 1994 | Strait of Dover, in the English Channel between the United Kingdom and France | 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 from 1976 to 2007 |
| Empire State Building | March 17, 1930 | April 11, 1931 | New York City, New York, United States | Tallest structure in the world from 1931 to 1954; tallest freestanding structure in the world from 1931 to 1967; tallest building in the world from 1931 to 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 | Longest main span of any suspension bridge in the world from 1937 to 1964 |
| Itaipu Dam | January 1970 | May 5, 1984 | Paraná River, on the border between Brazil and Paraguay | Largest operating hydroelectric facility in the world in terms of annual energy generation[13] |
| Netherlands North Sea Protection Works (Delta and Zuiderzee Works) | 1920 | May 10, 1997 | Zeeland, South Holland, North Holland, Friesland and Flevoland, Netherlands | Largest hydraulic engineering project undertaken by the Netherlands during the 20th century |
| Panama Canal | January 1, 1880 | January 7, 1914 | Isthmus of Panama | Allows passage of oceangoing vessels between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans; one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken |
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In November 2006, the American national newspaper USA Today and the American television show Good Morning America revealed a list of the "New Seven Wonders", both natural and human-made, as chosen by six judges.[14] The Grand Canyon was added as an eighth wonder on November 24, 2006, in response to viewer feedback.[15]
| Wonder | Location |
|---|---|
| Potala Palace | Lhasa, Tibet |
| Old City of Jerusalem | Israel[n 1] |
| Polar ice caps | Earth's polar regions (Arctic and Antarctic) |
| Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument | Hawaii, United States |
| The Internet | Worldwide |
| Mayan ruins | Yucatán Peninsula, México |
| Great Migration of Serengeti and Masai Mara | Tanzania and Kenya |
| Grand Canyon (viewer-chosen eighth wonder) | Arizona, United States |
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 such a list should be. One of many existing versions of this list was compiled by CNN in 1997:[16]
In 2001, an initiative was started by the Swiss corporation New7Wonders Foundation to choose the New 7 Wonders of the World from a selection of 200 existing monuments through online votes.[17] The Great Pyramid of Giza—part of the Giza Pyramids, the only remaining wonder of the traditional Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was not one of the winners announced in 2007 but was added as an honorary candidate.[18][19]
| Wonder | Date of construction | Present-day location |
|---|---|---|
| Great Wall of China | Since 7th century BC[20] | China |
| Petra | c. 100 BC | Ma'an, Jordan |
| Christ the Redeemer | opened to the public October 12, 1931 | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
| Machu Picchu | c. AD 1450 | Urubamba Province, Peru |
| Chichen Itza | c. AD 600 | Yucatán, Mexico |
| Colosseum | completed AD 80 | Rome, Italy |
| Taj Mahal | completed c. AD 1648 | Agra, India |
| Giza Pyramids (honorary candidates) | completed c. 2560 BC | Giza, Egypt |
A similar contemporary effort to create a list of seven natural (as opposed to human-made) wonders chosen through a global poll, called the New 7 Wonders of Nature, was organized from 2007 to 2011 by the same group as the New 7 Wonders of the World campaign.
New 7 Wonders Cities, a third list organized by New7Wonders and determined by another global vote, includes entire cities:
The list of "Seven Wonders of the Underwater World" was drawn up by CEDAM International, an American-based non-profit group for divers that is dedicated to ocean preservation and research. In 1989, CEDAM brought together a panel of marine scientists, including Eugenie Clark, to choose underwater areas which they considered worthy of protection. The results were announced at The National Aquarium in Washington, D.C., by actor Lloyd Bridges, star of TV's Sea Hunt:[21]
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.[22] In 2003, the BBC aired a seven-part docudrama exploring the same feats, with Cadbury as a producer. [23]
| Wonder | Description | Completed |
|---|---|---|
| SS Great Eastern | British oceangoing passenger steamship | 1858 |
| Bell Rock Lighthouse | in the North Sea off the coast of Angus, Scotland | 1810 |
| Brooklyn Bridge | in New York City, New York, United States | 1883 |
| London sewerage system | serving London, England | 1870 |
| First transcontinental railroad | 1,912-mile (3,077 km) continuous railroad line connecting existing rail networks in Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California in the United States | 1869 |
| Panama Canal | 51-mile (82 km) artificial waterway crossing the Isthmus of Panama and connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans | 1914 |
| Hoover Dam | on the Colorado River, spanning the border between Nevada and Arizona in the United States | 1936 |
In a 1999 article, Astronomy magazine listed the "Seven Wonders of the Solar System". This article was later made into a video.[24]
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.
