27 Wonders of the world

CHAPTER 1 The World's Ancient Wonders WE SEE LISTS ON THE INTERNET ALL THE TIME: TEN BEST MOVIES, BOOKS, VACATION PLACES BUT MAKING LISTS ISN'T NEW. Around 140 BCE, a Greek man, Antipater of Sidon, made a list of the Seven Wonders of the World. Most were beautiful buildings or statues in or near Greece. Only one is still standing today. Go online to learn more. The Colossus of Rhodes: a 30-meter-high statue of a god. It only stood for 56 years before it fell down in an earthquake. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon: A king called Nebuchadnezzar II built these beautiful gardens for his wife. The Statue of Zeus: a 12-meter-high statue of the Greek god Zeus. The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus: When a ruler called Mausolus died, they put his body here. Now buildings for dead people are called mausoleums. The Lighthouse at Alexandria: a 120-meter-tall building to help ships find the land. It also fell down in a big earthquake. The Temple of Artemis: Antipater's favorite wonder. There are only a few stones today to show us where it was. The Great Pyramid: the oldest of the ancient wonders and the only one that is still standing. For 3,800 years, it was the tallest building in the world.

我们经常在网上看到榜单：十大最佳电影、最佳书籍、最佳度假胜地，但制作榜单并不是什么新鲜事。 大约在公元前140年，一个希腊人，西顿的安提帕特，列出了世界七大奇迹。 大多数是希腊境内或附近的美丽建筑或雕像。 今天只有一个还站着。 上网了解更多。罗得岛巨像：一座30米高的神像。 它只屹立了56年，就在一场地震中倒下了。 巴比伦的空中花园：一位名叫尼布甲尼撒二世的国王为他的妻子建造了这些美丽的花园。 宙斯雕像：一座12米高的希腊神宙斯雕像。 哈利卡纳苏斯陵墓：当一位名叫摩索拉斯的统治者去世时，他们把他的遗体放在这里。 现在为死者建造的建筑被称为陵墓。 亚历山大灯塔：一座120米高的建筑，帮助船只找到陆地。 它也在一次大地震中倒下了。 阿尔忒弥斯神庙：安提帕特最喜欢的奇迹。 现在只有几块石头能告诉我们它的位置。 大金字塔：古代奇迹中最古老的，也是唯一仍然屹立不倒的。 3800年来，它一直是世界上最高的建筑。

CHAPTER 2 The New 7 Wonders of the World ON THE SEVENTH DAY OF THE SEVENTH MONTH OF THE YEAR 2007, THE NEW7WONDERS FOUNDATION NAMED SEVEN NEW WONDERS. In 2001, Bernard Weber, a Canadian, started the New7Wonders Foundation. He wanted people to know more about the beautiful cities, buildings, and statues in the world. He wanted people to understand how they are important to our history. Weber asked people in every country to vote for their favorite man-made wonder. After everybody voted, there were 77 wonders on the list. A group of experts chose 21 of these. Then, people voted again online and on the phone. Here are the seven new wonders they chose. Petra (Jordan) The Western world knew nothing of this ancient city until 1812. Then Johann Burckhardt from Switzerland discovered it. The Nabataean people built the city between 300 BCE and 100 CE. Many cities are built near mountains, but Petra is inside a mountain! Petra is sometimes called "the rose red city" because of its colors. It was a very important market town— people bought and sold things there. Today, you can see only about 15 percent of the city. The other 85 percent is under the ground. If you want to see Petra, watch the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade The end of the movie is in Petra.

2007年7月的第7天，世界新七大奇迹基金会评选出了世界新七大奇迹。 2001年，加拿大人伯纳德·韦伯创立了新七大奇迹基金会。 他想让人们更多地了解世界上美丽的城市、建筑和雕像。 他想让人们明白他们对我们的历史有多么重要。 韦伯请各国人民投票选出他们最喜欢的人造奇迹。 在大家投票之后，名单上有77个奇迹。 一组专家从中挑选了21个。 然后，人们再次在网上和电话上投票。 以下是他们选出的七个新奇迹。 佩特拉（约旦）1812年以前，西方世界对这座古城一无所知。 后来瑞士的约翰·布克哈特发现了它。 纳巴泰人在公元前300年到公元100年之间建造了这座城市。 许多城市都建在山附近，但佩特拉是在山里面！佩特拉有时被称为“玫瑰红之城”，因为它的颜色。 那是一个非常重要的集镇，人们在那里买卖东西。 今天，你只能看到大约15%的城市。 另外85%在地下。 如果你想看佩特拉，那就去看电影《印第安纳琼斯与最后的十字军东征》，电影的结尾在佩特拉。

The Taj Mahal (India) Emperor Shah Jahan loved his wife very much. She died in 1631, after she had her fourteenth child. The emperor was so sad that he wanted to build a beautiful temple for her. The next year, work started on the Taj Mahal. About 20,000 men and 1,000 elephants worked for 22 years to build it. A story at the time said that the emperor cut off the hands of the workers when it was finished. He didn't want them to make another monument as beautiful as the Taj Mahal. The Great Wall of China Emperor Qin Shi Huang lived in China in the 3rd century BCE. He was worried about some unfriendly countries, so he built a wall to stop other people. Later, between 1368 and 1644, the Ming Emperors made the wall longer. In the end, it was 8,851 kilometers long. It was very hard, dangerous work to make the wall. More than one million people died from the cold or because they didn't have enough food. For many years people stole stones from the wall to make their own houses. So today, only some parts of the wall are standing.

印度皇帝沙贾汗非常爱他的妻子。 1631年，她生下第14个孩子后去世。 皇帝非常伤心，他想为她建造一座美丽的寺庙。 第二年，泰姬陵开始动工。 大约2万人和1000头大象花了22年的时间建造它。 当时有一个故事说，皇帝在完工后砍掉了工人的手。 他不希望他们再建造一座像泰姬陵一样美丽的纪念碑。 秦始皇生活在公元前3世纪的中国。 他担心一些不友好的国家，所以他建了一堵墙来阻止其他人。 后来，在1368年至1644年间，明朝皇帝把长城修得更长。 最后，它有8851公里长。 筑墙是一项非常艰苦、危险的工作。 超过一百万人死于寒冷或没有足够的食物。 多年来，人们从墙上偷石头建造自己的房子。 所以今天，只有部分城墙还在。

The Colosseum (Italy) Work began on this building in 72 CE, in the time of the Roman Emperor Vespasian. At one time, 50,000 people came to the Colosseum to watch sports and games. But these weren't the sports we enjoy today. They were fights with men called gladiators or with dangerous animals. Thousands of people died. After a long time these games stopped. Then, between the 6th and 12th centuries, the Colosseum was a place for shops and houses. A large part of the building fell down in an earthquake in 1349, but you can still go to Rome and visit it today. Machu Picchu (Peru) This is called "The City in the Clouds." Around 1450, the Incas started to build Machu Picchu, a beautiful city between two mountains, 2,500 meters above the sea. The city was small. About 750 people lived here, and there were only 200 buildings. No one knows why the Incas built it. Maybe it was a vacation place for an important man called Pachacuti. In the early 1500s, the Spanish came to South America and destroyed many Inca cities. But they did not find Machu Picchu. It was a lost city until American Hiram Bingham discovered it again in 1911. Now lots of tourists visit it.

罗马斗兽场（意大利）公元72年，罗马皇帝维斯帕先统治时期，这座建筑开始动工。 有一段时间，有5万人来到罗马斗兽场观看体育比赛。 但这些都不是我们今天喜欢的运动。 他们与被称为角斗士的人或危险的动物搏斗。 数千人死亡。过了很长一段时间，这些游戏停止了。 然后，在6世纪到12世纪之间，罗马斗兽场是商店和住宅的地方。 这座建筑的很大一部分在1349年的一次地震中倒塌了，但今天你仍然可以去罗马参观它。 马丘比丘（秘鲁）这里被称为“云中之城”。 1450年左右，印加人开始建造马丘比丘，这是一座位于两座山脉之间的美丽城市，海拔2500米。 这座城市很小。大约有750人住在这里，而这里只有200栋建筑。 没人知道印加人为什么要建造它。 也许这是一个重要人物帕查库提的度假胜地。 16世纪初，西班牙人来到南美洲，摧毁了许多印加城市。 但他们并没有发现马丘比丘。 这是一座失落的城市，直到1911年美国人海勒姆·宾厄姆再次发现它。 现在有很多游客来参观。

Chichén Itzå (Mexico) The Mayans built a city in Chichén Itzå because there was water under the ground for their farms. They began to build it in the 6th century CE, but about 1200, they left. Nobody is sure why. When the Spanish arrived in the 15th century, the city was empty. El Castillo, or the temple of Kukulcån, is the most famous building in Chichén Itzå. Kukulcån was a Mayan god. He was half bird, half snake. Twice a year, the light from the sun does something strange on the walls of El Castillo. You can see a snake moving from the top to the bottom. Christ the Redeemer Statue (Brazil) At 30 meters tall, this statue is one of the tallest in the world. It's on the top of Corcovado Mountain. Workers used stone from Sweden. They finished it in 1931. In 2008, lightnings hit the statue on the head and fingers, Then, in 2010, some people painted the statue's head and arms and wrote words on the face. But don't worry. The statue is still standing, and now it's clean again.

玛雅人在chichsamitz<s:1>（墨西哥）建造了一座城市，因为那里的地下有水供他们耕种。 他们在公元6世纪开始建造它，但大约1200年，他们离开了。 没有人知道原因。当西班牙人在15世纪到达时，这座城市是空的。 El Castillo，又称库库尔卡塔神庙，是奇奇<s:1>伊茨<s:1>最著名的建筑。 库库尔卡马纳是玛雅神。 他半鸟半蛇。 每年有两次，来自太阳的光线会在El Castillo的墙上产生奇怪的效果。 你可以看到一条蛇从顶部移动到底部。 救世主基督雕像（巴西）这座雕像高30米，是世界上最高的雕像之一。 它在科尔科瓦多山顶上。 工人们使用来自瑞典的石头。 他们于1931年完工。2008年，闪电击中了雕像的头部和手指，然后，在2010年，一些人在雕像的头部和手臂上作画，并在雕像的脸上写了字。 不过别担心。雕像还站着，现在又干净了。

CHAPTER 3 Other Wonders THERE ARE MANY DIFFERENT KINDS OF WONDERS IN OUR WORLD. In 2011, the New7Wonders Foundation named the New 7 Wonders of Nature. Amazon Rainforest (South America): This rainforest is the largest rainforest in the world. About 60 percent of it is in Brazil, and other parts are in seven other South American countries. The Amazon River goes through the middle of it. Iguazu Falls (between Brazil and Argentina): In some places the waterfalls are 82 meters high. Between November and March, about 13,000 cubic meters of water per second fall into the river below. Table Mountain (South Africa): This 1,100-meter-high mountain is near the city of Cape Town. Jeju Island (South Korea): Many tourists visit this beautiful island to see its beaches, parks, and the famous dol hareubang, stone statues of old men. Komodo (Indonesia): This island is famous because of the Komodo dragon. This animal can be 3 meters long and 70 kilograms. It has big teeth and can be dangerous. Ha Long Bay (Vietnam): There are 1,600 islands here. There are no people on most of them. Puerto Princesa Undergound River (Philippines): This 8.2-kilometer river runs under the St. Paul Mountains and into the South China Sea. These seven places came from a list of 28 possible wonders. It was hard to choose just seven. Some of the ones that did not make the list are Mount Everest, the Grand Canyon, and the Northern Lights.

第三章其他奇迹在我们的世界上有许多不同种类的奇迹。 2011年，新七大奇迹基金会提名了新七大自然奇迹。 亚马逊雨林（南美洲）：这是世界上最大的雨林。 其中大约60%在巴西，其他部分在其他七个南美国家。 亚马逊河从它的中间穿过。 伊瓜苏瀑布（位于巴西和阿根廷之间）：有些地方的瀑布高达82米。 从11月到次年3月，每秒钟大约有1.3万立方米的水流入下面的河流。 桌山（南非）：这座1100米高的山靠近开普敦市。 济州岛（韩国）：许多游客到这个美丽的岛屿去看海滩、公园和著名的老人石像。 科莫多岛（印度尼西亚）：这座岛因科莫多巨蜥而闻名。 这种动物可以有3米长，70公斤重。 它的牙齿很大，很危险。 下龙湾（越南）：这里有1600个岛屿。 大多数都没有人。 公主港地下河（菲律宾）：这条长达8.2公里的河流在圣。 保罗山脉和南中国海。 这7个地方从28个可能的奇迹中脱颖而出。 要选出七个很难。 没有上榜的景点包括珠穆朗玛峰、大峡谷和北极光。