The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World are seven ancient structures that were particularly impressive or had special historical value. They were listed in some of the earliest guidebooks for travellers, a century or two BCE. These guides were written in Greek and covered only the region around the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea.
The list varied from book to book, but the best-known version included the following sights:
At the time the Wonders were first listed, the Hellenic (Greek) culture extended far beyond the current boundaries of Greece. Alexander the Great had created a huge empire and, though that empire soon split up, Greek influence continued in many areas for centuries. All these wonders were in the Hellenic regions; see Ancient Greece.
None of these but the Great Pyramid — which ironically was the oldest of the seven wonders at the time the list was made — has survived to the present day.
In subsequent eras, there have been various proposals for lists of "seven wonders" in various regions or worldwide; occasionally, a landmark is proposed as an "eighth wonder" of the world. With no universally-defined criteria for which places to include, the selection of seven destinations for these lists tends to be arbitrary and variable, and none of them have been widely accepted.