Eighth Wonder of the World

Eighth Wonder of the World is an unofficial title sometimes given to new buildings, structures, projects, or even designs that are deemed to be comparable to the seven Wonders of the World.

Candidates for the Eighth Wonder of the World

Mitre Peak, in Milford Sound, New Zealand.

Natural places

• Burney Falls in California; called so by Theodore Roosevelt^[1]
• Giant's Causeway in County Antrim, Northern Ireland
• Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland, Canada^[2]
• Milford Sound in New Zealand; called so by Rudyard Kipling^[3]
• Natural Bridge (Virginia), so dubbed by William Jennings Bryan^[4]
• Pink and White Terraces in New Zealand, prior to their wrongly assumed destruction in the 1886 eruption of Mount Tarawera.^[5] In 2017 researchers using a lost 1959 survey finally mapped the Pink and White terrace locations.^[6][7]
• Torres del Paine National Park, Chile.^[8][9]
• The great wildebeest migration in the Maasai Mara, Kenya and Serengeti, Tanzania^[10]
• Uluru in Australia.

Pre-1900 creations

Sigiriya in Matale District, Sri Lanka.

Angkor Wat in Angkor, Cambodia.

The Citadelle Laferrière in Northern Haiti.

Monolithic church of Ethiopia in Lalibela, Ethiopia.

• Amber Room in the Catherine Palace near Saint Petersburg, Russia^[11]
• Angkor Wat, Cambodia^[12]
• Banaue Rice Terraces, Philippines^{[13][14][15][16][17]}
• Capilla de Nuestra Señora del Rosario, Puebla City, Mexico^[18]

• The Citadelle Laferrière, Haiti^[19]

• The monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial, Spain.^[20]
• Great Wall of China, China^[21]
• The original 1882 Kinzua Viaduct (railway bridge) in USA.
• Machu Picchu, Peru^[22]
• The moai statues of Easter Island, Chile^[23]
• The Obelisk of Axum, Ethiopia^[24]
• The rock-hewn churches at Lalibela, Ethiopia^[25] (Church of Saint George, Lalibela)
• Royal Palace in Amsterdam, Netherlands^[26]
• Sigiriya, Sri Lanka^[27][28][29]
• Statue of Liberty, New York Harbor, United States^[30]
• Stonehenge, United Kingdom^[31]
• The Taj Mahal, India^[32][33]
• The Terracotta Army, China^[34]

• The original rail-only Victoria Bridge (Montreal).^[35]

Post-1900 creations

• Aswan Dam in Egypt, called as such by Nikita Khrushchev
• Bahá'í terraces, on Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel.^[36]
• Delta Works, the Dutch provinces of Zeeland and Zuid-Holland, the Netherlands. The Delta Works has been called one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by Quest magazine and the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the "Eighth Wonder of the World" by several other sources.^[37]

Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia.

• Empire State Building, New York City.^[38][39]
• Great Manmade River in Libya; given the title by Muammar Gaddafi.^[40]
• Houston Astrodome^[41]
• International Space Station in Orbit around Earth; title given by the Americans and Russians.
• Karakoram Highway in Pakistan, and China
• Palm Islands of Dubai^[42]
• Panama Canal^[43]
• Pikeville Cut-Through in Pikeville, Kentucky; given the title by The New York Times.^[44][45][46]
• Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia;^[47] the story of its construction was recounted in the opera The Eighth Wonder
• Thames Barrier, London, United Kingdom.^[48]
• Three Gorges Dam in Hubei, China^[49]
• West Baden Springs Hotel^[50]

Fiction

• King Kong, a fictional giant movie monster resembling a colossal gorilla, that has appeared in several movies since 1933. His captor promotes public exhibitions of the caged Kong with the tagline: "Eighth Wonder of the World".^[51]

People

• Andre the Giant, a well-known professional wrestler and actor, was esteemed "The Eighth Wonder of the World" due to his enormous 224cm (7 ft 4 in) and 240 kg (520 lb) frame.^[52]

See also

• New Seven Wonders of the World
• Wonders of the World

References