Wonders of the World

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.

This article is about natural and human-made 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 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]

in Giza, Egypt, the earliest of the wonders to be completed, as well as the only one that still exists in the present day.

Great Pyramid of Giza

in the harbor of the city of Rhodes, on the Greek island of the same name.

Colossus of Rhodes

in Babylon, near present-day Hillah, Babylon Governorate, Iraq; or Nineveh, Mosul, Nineveh Governorate, Iraq.

Hanging Gardens of Babylon

in Alexandria, Egypt.

Lighthouse of Alexandria

in Halicarnassus, a city of the Achaemenid Empire in present-day Turkey.

Mausoleum at Halicarnassus

in Olympia, Greece.

Statue of Zeus at Olympia

at Ephesus, in the city of Ephesus, near present-day Selçuk, Turkey.

Temple of Artemis

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:

a 2nd-century funerary complex in Alexandria, Egypt.

Catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa

a 1st-century amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy.

Colosseum

a series of defensive fortifications built across the historical northern borders of China, with some segments dating to as early as the 7th century BC.

Great Wall of China

a 6th-century cathedral and mosque in Istanbul, Turkey.

Hagia Sophia

a 12th-century bell tower in Pisa, Italy.

Leaning Tower of Pisa

a 15th-century pagoda on the south bank of the external Qinhuai River in Nanjing, China.

Porcelain Tower of Nanjing

a Neolithic henge monument in Wiltshire, England dated to the 3rd millennium BC.

Stonehenge

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:

in the Earth's high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic)

Aurora

in Arizona, United States

Grand Canyon

off the coast of Queensland, Australia

Great Barrier Reef

of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Harbor

on the border of Nepal and China

Mount Everest

volcano, located in the state of Michoacán, Mexico

Parícutin

on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe

Victoria Falls

Eighth Wonder of the World

Seven Wonders of Brazil

12 Treasures of Spain

(Fore Abbey, Ireland)

Seven Wonders of Fore

– a list of over 900 sites deemed by UNESCO to be of "outstanding universal value"

World Heritage List

A list of world wonders linking the ancient 7 Wonders of the World and the World Heritage List by UNESCO