Sightseeing is ... History of the concept, the most famous sights of the world

Millions of tourists around the world travel in search of spectacular attractions. But what is it? An attraction is only old buildings and sculptures, or, perhaps, this definition applies to streets or entire cities?

The notion of sights

In fact, the concept is quite broad. The attraction is not only ancient buildings and monuments, but also other objects, places, things that are worthy of public attention. These objects can be ancient and have historical value, and can be completely new, but popular because of artistic value or originality in performance.

In general, the attraction 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, the number of places of interest has also been increased by reservations - places where certain ethnic groups and nationalities live.

An attraction is also an area or a place that attracts the attention of others around mysterious and unexplained phenomena. For example, houses with ghosts, places where they saw a UFO.

The origin of the concept

The idea to create one general term for interesting objects arose with the idea of creating something like a guidebook. It happened approximately in 1836 in the publishing house of John Murray.

Of course, even before Murray, during the Roman Empire, there were travel essays, which described in detail the path traversed by the narrator. Much later, in many countries of the world, a similar genre was widely used. In Croatia it was called putopis, in Russia - "travel essay", in Germany - reisebericht.

The goal of John Murray was not to create an essay on the already existing journey, but a guidebook indicating all the remarkable objects in one or another place. Such a manual required the creation of a special concept, and then came up with the term "attraction". The guide indicated the main attraction, and the number of stars nearby spoke about the degree of its uniqueness and fascination.

Objects of world fame

Every year the number of significant places is growing, tourists are in a hurry to capture incredible places in memory. Museums are opened, unusual buildings and sculptures appear, new events and festivals are organized. But there are also such sights of the world that everyone has necessarily heard about. The most popular are usually ancient architectural structures, ancient temples and palaces, tall sculptures. Here is the list of the 10 most visited of them:

• Statue of Liberty, New York, USA.
• The Roman Colosseum, Rome, Italy.
• Eiffel Tower, Paris, France.
• Great Wall of China, Beijing, China.
• Machu Picchu, Peru.
• Taj Mahal, Agra, India.
• St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City.
• Teotihuacan, San Juan Teotihuacan, Mexico.
• Stonehenge, Wilshire, UK.
• Statue of Christ, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.