"7 Wonders of World"

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

Hagia Sophia

Stonehenge

Taj Mahal

Empire State Building

Golden Gate Bridge

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

Machu Picchu

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 included:

• Great Pyramid of Giza
• Hanging Gardens of Babylon
• Statue of Zeus at Olympia
• Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
• Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus
• Colossus of Rhodes
• Lighthouse of Alexandria

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.

Medieval World

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:

• Stonehenge
• Colosseum
• Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa
• Great Wall of China
• Porcelain Tower of Nanjing
• Hagia Sophia
• Leaning Tower of Pisa

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:

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.	Troronto, 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