h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What everyone (or mostly everyone) calls Big Ben is actually St Stephen's Clock Tower. Big Ben is the main Bell inside.

The great pyramid is the one with a sort of cap on the top in the centre in the first picture & unless you've been lucky enough to see them first hand you cannot imagine how big they are or how big the stones are they are constructed of.

I was lucky enough after giving a tourist policeman some "Baksheesh" to get a photo of me standing on the great pyramid. normally noone is allowed on them but you can go inside up to the burial chamber.

Conversely the Sphinx is a big disapointment & is quite small & disfigured by the British squaddies who used it for target prcatise during the war

Good question.

My favourite: White cliffs of Dover, for obvious reasons. You can see them from a ferry or from the plane, brings a lump to my throat every time.

Most well known in the world: possibly the Statue of Liberty, but to make it more cosmopolitan, I would suggest Table Mountain.

And where the heck is Table Mountain?

There's certainly been a great selection of famous sights mentioned so far. I'd go for the ones that are instantly recognisable from a photo: I'm not sure that I would always be able to tell Table Mountain from other table-shaped mountains, (or even the Great Wall of China from other ancient walls ). The Eiffel Tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Statue of Liberty are all instantly recognisable. I'd say the Statue of Liberty wins out because of the amount of exposure it gets in TV and films, which are seen all over the world.

My favourite landmark is one that only a few people here will recognise: the obelisk on Killiney Hill, south of Dublin.

Azara

As long as it's not the damned metal spike.

Can I throw a couple of recognisable landmarks into the pot??

Man-made - The Sydney Opera House (unique and instantly recognisable)

Natural - Mt Fujiyama (also unique and instantly recognisable)


NOTE: I think that I read somewhere that both the Great Barrier Reef and The Great Wall of China can be seen from space - are there any other landmarks in that category?

There's a junkyard near New Jersey which is supposed to be the last visible man made object when going into space. The Great Wall can't be seen from space, it's too thin.

I am very surprised that no-one has mentioned Stonehenge which would be my choice.

As for a natural landmark, I guess it would have to be Mount Everest. Very distinctive, noticable and seriously in-your-face.

You were cheated, highamexpat. The Great Pyramid is not the one with the cap on it. It is the smaller-looking one with the top missing. The one with the cap is the pyramid of Chephren/Khafre.

Being an American, my favorite landmark is the Golden Gate Bridge. I find it so beautiful and majestic, somehow. It really is an engineering marvel, in my humble opinion. But it's probably not the most recognizable landmark in this country by far (Statue of Liberty, Mt. Rushmore, the Alamo, the Washington Monument, etc).

I would say the one I know best without even thinking about it is the Eiffel Tower. I know that people in other countries and continents have their ideas about what is and isn't recognizable, but the tower is so well-known, I think people know it more universally (I'd say the Statue of Libery might be #2 with the Great Pyramid in 3rd).

And by the way, I didn't realize until I saw it in person how enormous it is. I got serious vertigo just standing under it.

Speaking of really well cool bridges, anyone who hasn't seen it yet should do an image search for 'Millau bridge'.

Or Millau Viaduct, even. Yeah make us do all the work!

http://www.viaducdemillaueiffage.com/


az

The work of one Sir Norman Foster...which is nice.

Here's how the thread came about: I was searching for artist's impressions of the Freedom Tower and got to thinking about how the pyramids (probably) held the title of 'world's tallest' longer than any other building. I found a website about Eiffel Tower that suggested that it is the most famous landmark in the world. I thought 'surely not!' I'd go for the Statue of Liberty, or maybe even the twin towers. My favourite is Tower Bridge.

One that's not been mentioned yet...St. Paul's Cathedral.

UK-centric: Canary Wharf, Angel Of The North, Tower Bridge, Scott Monument, Albert Memorial.

I still reckon more people have heard of the Great Wall of China, though.

RF

Oh yeah, and I meant to ask: What does The Alamo look like?

RF

That Millau Bridge is even more impressive looking than the one I drove over two weeks ago, the Rio Antirio Bridge, although I don't think it is quite as big:

http://www.gefyra.gr/English/framesetbig.htm

My I think that one of the most famous landmarks world-wide would be the Pyramids (could they be one landmark?). I think that most people world-wide would know what it was just from a picture, as they're so ancient, and so recognizable.

As a personal favorite, I'd have to say the Statue of Liberty. Maybe I'm just a Noo Yawk-centric person, but I've seen some of the landmarks listed here, but nothing gave me as great a thrill as my first up-close look at it, and every time we're in the "area," I strain to see it.

The only place that ever made me catch my breath upon first seeing it was Cologne Cathedral. Well, that's not true, actually I reacted the same way when I saw the baroque Cathedral in St Gallen, but that's not really famous.

As for the place with the most landmarks, London must be way ahead. I mean, what does Paris have after the Eiffel tower (Sacre Coeur, Pompidou Centre,..)

If you take the coach into Victoria on landing at Stansted, you pass at least a dozen famous sites - I couldn't think of one we hadn't passed, come to that - you see the Tower, Tower bridge, Houses of Parliament, Teh London Eye, Westminster Abbey, St Paul's if you crane your neck... etc, etc., I could hardly keep up, looking out of the left-hand-side then the right-hand-side. A sight a minute, and all world-famous.

UK-centric, possibly, a bit? Sorry, then.

I'd have to say the Statue of Liberty as the most recognisable landmark. As much as I love Paris and the area aroud the Eiffel Tower especially, I also think I could mistake it for the Blackpool Tower.

As for my favourite landmark, it has to be the Three Graces of the Liverpool seafront, the Liver Building, the Cunard Building and the Port Authority Building. I'd say they make Liverpool one of the most recognisable waterfronts in the world.