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  Seven Wonders of the World

Listing the seven wonders of the world began during the time of the Greeks. The first lists were for travelers of that time, listing man-made objects of particular architectural or sculptural note. The list of Seven Wonders of the Ancient World generally includes the Pyramids of Giza; the Hanging Gardens of Babylon; the temple of Artemis at Ephesus; the mausoleum at Halicarnassus; the Colossus of Rhodes (a statue of the sun god Helios); the Pharos (lighthouse) of Alexandria; and the statue of Zeus at Olympia, Greece.

Today there are many such lists, including the Seven Modern Wonders, the Seven Wonders of the Medieval World, the Seven Natural Wonders, the Seven Wonders of Medicine, etc. According to several encyclopedias, some of the lists are as follows:

The Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages: The Colosseum of Rome, the catacombs of Alexandria, the Great Wall of China, Hagia Sophia of Constantinople, Stonehenge, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the Porcelain Pagoda of Nanjing.

The Seven Natural Wonders of the World: The Grand Canyon (U.S.), Iguazú; Falls (Argentina), Yosemite Valley’s giant sequoias (U.S.), Mount Everest (Tibet/Nepal), the harbor of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), the Nile River (Egypt), and the aurora borealis (the northern lights). Among the natural wonders included on other lists are Niagara Falls (U.S./Canada), Rainbow Natural Bridge (U.S.), and the Petrified Forest (U.S.), among others.

The Seven Wonders of Today (compiled in 1931 after the completion of the Empire State Building): The Great Pyramids (Egypt), Hagia Sophia (Turkey), Leaning Tower of Pisa (Italy), Washington Monument (U.S.), Eiffel Tower (France), Taj Mahal (India), and Empire State Building (U.S.).

There are many other such lists; none are definitive, of course. But the United Nations’ World Heritage Convention (part of UNESCO) has compiled an inventory of the world’s wonders that it plans to preserve and protect. To qualify, a site must be judged to have “outstanding universal value,” either “natural” like Canada’s Wood Buffalo National Park and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, or “cultural” like Haiti’s Citadel and Sans Souci and France’s Chartres Cathedral. Among the hundreds of sites listed by the World Heritage Convention are the ancient city of Cuzco in Peru, Virunga National Park in Zaire, the U.S.’s Statue of Liberty, Altamira Cave in Spain, and Sri Lanka’s sacred city of Anuradhapura. You can read more about some of the World Heritage Sites in the Society’s book Our World’s Heritage, published in 1987.