Landmarks › World Wonders
Ancient and modern wonders that humanity has judged worth preserving: the Great Pyramid and Sphinx of Giza, Petra's Al-Khazneh carved into red rock, the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis, the Colosseum, the Taj Mahal, El Castillo at Chichen Itza, Machu Picchu high in the Peruvian Andes, the prehistoric Stonehenge, the most-visited Badaling section of the Great Wall of China, the Statue of Liberty, Cristo Redentor watching over Rio, and Gustave Eiffel's Tour Eiffel in Paris. Each coordinate is verified against satellite imagery and ready to navigate to.
Al-Khazneh (الخزنة), 'The Treasury,' is the most elaborate ruin of the ancient Nabatean city of Petra in Jordan. Carved directly into a sheer rose-red sandstone cliff in the 1st century BCE, it became globally famous as a backdrop in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
The Colosseum (Colosseo) in central Rome is the largest ancient amphitheater ever built, completed in 80 CE and capable of hosting 50,000 spectators for gladiatorial contests, mock sea battles, and public spectacles. Its elliptical limestone walls have stood for nearly two millennia.
Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) atop the 700-meter Corcovado mountain in Rio de Janeiro is a 30-meter Art Deco statue of Jesus completed in 1931. Visible from across the city, it is one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.
El Castillo (Temple of Kukulcán) at Chichen Itza on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula is a step-pyramid built by the Mayans between the 8th and 12th centuries. Twice a year at the equinox, the setting sun creates a serpent-shaped shadow that descends the staircase.
The Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt, the only surviving wonder of the ancient world, was built around 2560 BCE as a tomb for Pharaoh Khufu. At 146.6 meters originally, it remained the tallest human-made structure for over 3,800 years.
The Great Wall of China stretches over 21,000 km across northern China; the Badaling section, in Yanqing District about 80 km northwest of Beijing, is by far its most visited stretch and the one shown to most foreign dignitaries since US President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit. Built in 1505 during the Ming Dynasty to protect the Juyongguan Pass and Beijing, restored from 1957 onward and opened as the first tourist section of the Wall, it climbs to its highest point at Beibalou (1,015 m above sea level). The Great Wall as a whole is one of the New Seven Wonders of the World (2007) and a UNESCO World Heritage Site (1987).
Machu Picchu, the "Lost City of the Incas", is a 15th-century Inca citadel on a mountain ridge at 2,430 m in the Eastern Cordillera of southern Peru, about 80 km northwest of Cusco above the Sacred Valley. Built around 1450 as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti and abandoned a century later during the Spanish conquest, the site features finely crafted dry-stone walls including the Temple of the Sun, the Temple of the Three Windows and the Intihuatana ritual stone. Brought to world attention by American historian Hiram Bingham in 1911, it was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983 and named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in 2007.
The Parthenon (Παρθενώνας) on the Acropolis of Athens, completed in 438 BCE, is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece. Dedicated to the goddess Athena, it has served as temple, church, mosque, and museum across 2,500 years.
The Great Sphinx of Giza (أبو الهول) is a 73-meter limestone statue with the body of a lion and the head of a pharaoh, traditionally identified as Khafre. Carved roughly 4,500 years ago, it is the oldest known monumental sculpture in Egypt.
The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World) on Liberty Island in New York Harbor was a gift from France in 1886. Standing 93 meters from base to torch, the copper colossus has greeted generations of immigrants entering the United States.
Stonehenge is a prehistoric megalithic stone circle on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, about 3 km west of Amesbury, built in several phases between roughly 3100 BC and 1600 BC. The famous outer ring of large sarsen standing stones (each about 4 m tall and 25 tonnes) was placed between 2600 and 2400 BC, topped with horizontal lintel stones held by mortise and tenon joints, with an inner ring of smaller bluestones brought from Wales. The whole monument is aligned on the sunrise of the summer solstice and the sunset of the winter solstice. Managed by English Heritage and inscribed by UNESCO in 1986 (with Avebury) as one of Britain's defining cultural icons.
The Taj Mahal (ताज महल) in Agra, India, is a white-marble mausoleum commissioned in 1632 by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as a tomb for his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal. Universally admired for its perfectly symmetrical proportions, it is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.
The Eiffel Tower (Tour Eiffel) is a 330-metre wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, designed by the engineers Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier of Gustave Eiffel's company (with architect Stephen Sauvestre) and built between 1887 and 1889 as the entrance arch of the 1889 Universal Exhibition celebrating the centennial of the French Revolution. Originally 300 m tall and now reaching 330 m with the broadcasting antennas added over the decades, it was the world's tallest man-made structure for 41 years (until the Chrysler Building in 1930) and remains the most-visited paid monument on Earth, a global icon of Paris and France.