Following in the tradition of the classical list, modern people and organizations have made their own lists of wonderful things, both ancient and modern, natural and artificial. Some of the most notable lists are presented below.
American Society of Civil Engineers in Toronto, Canada 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".
USA Todays New Seven Wonders 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. The
Grand Canyon was added as an eighth wonder on November 24, 2006, in response to viewer feedback.
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. One of many existing versions of this list was compiled by
CNN in 1997: •
Aurora, in the Earth's
high-latitude regions (around the
Arctic and
Antarctic) •
Grand Canyon, in
Arizona, United States •
Great Barrier Reef, off the coast of
Queensland, Australia •
Harbor of
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil •
Mount Everest, on the border of
Nepal and
China •
Parícutin volcano, located in the state of
Michoacán, Mexico •
Victoria Falls, on the border of
Zambia and
Zimbabwe New 7 Wonders of the World at
Chichen Itza 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. The Great Pyramid of Giza, 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.
New 7 Wonders of Nature 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. •
Iguazu Falls, on the
border of the
Argentine province of
Misiones and the Brazilian state of
Paraná •
Hạ Long Bay, in
Quảng Ninh province, Vietnam •
Jeju Island, in the
Jeju Province of South Korea •
Puerto Princesa Underground River, in
Palawan, Philippines •
Table Mountain, overlooking the city of
Cape Town, South Africa •
Komodo Island, one of the
17,508 islands that comprise the Republic of Indonesia •
Amazon rainforest, located in
Brazil,
Peru,
Colombia,
Venezuela,
Ecuador,
Bolivia,
Guyana,
Suriname, and
French Guiana New 7 Wonders Cities New 7 Wonders Cities, a third list organized by New7Wonders and determined by another global vote, includes entire cities: •
Durban, South Africa •
Vigan, Philippines •
Havana, Cuba •
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia •
Beirut, Lebanon •
Doha, Qatar •
La Paz, Bolivia
Seven Wonders of the Underwater World 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: •
Palau •
Belize Barrier Reef, Belize •
Great Barrier Reef, Australia •
Deep-sea hydrothermal vents (worldwide) •
Galápagos Islands, Ecuador •
Lake Baikal, Russia •
Northern Red Sea, bordered by
Saudi Arabia and
Yemen on the eastern shore, and
Egypt,
Sudan,
Eritrea, and
Djibouti on the western shore
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 aired a seven-part
docudrama exploring the same feats, with Cadbury as a
producer.
Seven Wonders of the Solar System In a 1999 article,
Astronomy magazine listed the "Seven Wonders of the Solar System". This article was later made into a video. •
Enceladus, a moon of
Saturn • The
Great Red Spot of
Jupiter, a massive and persistent anticyclonic storm in the planet's southern hemisphere • The
asteroid belt, a region of innumerable small solid bodies located between the orbits of
Mars and Jupiter • The
surface of the
Sun • The
oceans of
Earth • The
Rings of Saturn •
Olympus Mons, an enormous shield volcano on Mars and the tallest planetary mountain in the Solar System
Other lists of wonders of the world Many authors and organizations 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. ==See also==