The New Seven Wonders of the World

[12/8/06] GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- A global competition to name the new seven wonders of the world is attracting widespread interest, with more than 20 million people voting so far, organizers say.

The Egyptian pyramids are the only surviving structures from the original list of seven architectural marvels. Long gone are the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes and the Pharos lighthouse off Alexandria. Those seven were deemed wonders in ancient times by observers of the Mediterranean and Middle East.

Candidates for the new list have been narrowed down to 21, including the Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty, Taj Mahal and Peru's Machu Picchu. The public can vote until July 6, 2007, by Internet or phone. The seven winners will be announced July 7 in Lisbon, Portugal.

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[7/21/07] July 8 (Bloomberg) -- The Great Wall of China, Rome's Colosseum and the Chichen Itza pyramid in Mexico were selected among the new seven wonders of the world in a poll that drew more than 90 million votes.

Machu Picchu in Peru, Jordan's ancient city of Petra, the Statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and the Taj Mahal in India were the other winners, according to the New7Wonders Foundation, which organized the poll.

Sites that didn't make the new seven wonders include the Acropolis in Greece, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Easter Island statues, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the Alhambra in Spain, Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, the Kiyomizu Temple in Japan, the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral in Russia, Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany, the Statue of Liberty, Stonehenge in the U.K., the Sydney Opera House and Timbuktu in Mali.

The six other ancient wonders of the world were the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus and the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. The six were located around the Mediterranean and in the Middle East, reflecting the origins of civilization.