Millions of tourists around the world travel in search of impressive sights. But what is it? A landmark is only ancient buildings and sculptures, or perhaps this definition applies to streets or entire cities?
The concept of attraction
In fact, the concept is quite broad. A landmark is not only ancient buildings and monuments, but also other objects, places, things that are worthy of public attention. These objects can be old and have historical value, or they can be completely new, but they can be popular because of artistic value or originality in performance.
In general, a point of interest is famous or valuable objects. The concept includes zoos, nature reserves, national and natural parks, galleries, gardens, museums, architecture, sculptures, monuments, even fairs and festivals. Recently, reservations have also been added to the number of attractions - places where certain ethnic groups and nationalities live.
A point of interest is also a territory or place that attracts the attention of others with mysterious and inexplicable phenomena. For example, houses with ghosts, places where they saw UFOs.
The emergence of the concept
The idea to create one generalizing term for interesting objects arose along with the idea to create something like a guide. It happened around 1836 at the John Murray Publishing House.
Of course, even before Murray, during the time of the Roman Empire, there were travel essays that described in detail the path traveled by the narrator. Much later, a similar genre was widely used in various countries of the world. In Croatia, it was called putopis, in Russia - “travel guide”, in Germany - reisebericht.
The goal of John Murray was not to create an essay on an already existing trip, but a guide with an indication of all the notable objects in a particular place. Such a manual required the creation of a special concept, and then they coined the term "landmark". The main attraction was indicated in the guide, and the number of stars nearby indicated the degree of its uniqueness and fascination.
World famous objects
Every year the number of significant places is growing, tourists are in a hurry to capture incredible places in their memory. Museums open, unusual buildings and sculptures appear, new events and festivals are organized. But there are also such sights of the world that everyone has always heard of. The most popular are usually ancient architectural structures, ancient temples and palaces, tall sculptures. Here is a list of the 10 most visited of them:
- Statue of Liberty, New York, USA.
- Roman Colosseum, Rome, Italy.
- Eiffel Tower, Paris, France.
- The Great Wall of China, Beijing, China.
- Machu Picchu, Peru.
- Taj Mahal, Agra, India.
- St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican.
- Teotihuacan, San Juan Teotihuacan, Mexico.
- Stonehenge, Wilshire, UK.
- Statue of Christ, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.