The Great Wall of China is one of the most famous monuments of Asia and is located in Northern China, starting at Shanhaiguan and ending in an arc at Lop Nur. It was first built in the 5th century B.C. to protect the Chinese Emperor from invasion by neighboring nomadic clans and is made of earth and stone. Several walls were built from around the 6th century B.C. to the 17th century B.C. The most famous part of the wall was built during the Ming Dynasty for Qin Shi Huang. The wall is 5,500 miles long and is claimed by Ripley's Believe It or Not! to be visible by the human eye from the moon.
The Taj Mahal is one of the most recognizable and spectacular monuments in the world because of its incredible beauty and its sad, romantic history. The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum commissioned by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan that was built between in 1632 and 1653. Shah Jahan was so grief-stricken when his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, died during the birth of their fourteenth child that he ordered the magnificent structure to be built to hold her remains. It stands 50 meters tall in Agra, India and covers three acres of land, contains a river, a mosque, and is made out of white marble, jasper, jade, crystal, turquoise, sapphire, carnelian, gold, precious gems and diamonds.
The Great Buddha of Kamakura is an awe inspiring 93 ton hollow bronze statue of Amitabha Buddha, whose name means "Internal Light." The statue stands 43.8 feet tall and sits out in the open at the Kotoku-in Temple in Kamakura, Japan. The original statue was made of wood and sat inside a hall but was destroyed by a storm in 1248. A new gilded bronze statue was rebuilt inside another hall but the hall was washed away on five occasions between 1252 to 1498 by storms and a tsunami. It is believed that the Buddha that stands now is the second bronze Buddha that was constructed in 1252. It is located outside of the Buddhist temple of the Jodo shu sect and is one of the most visited sites of Japan.
The Potala Palace looks like a fortress on top of Marpo Ri in Lhasa, Tibet. It symbolizes Lhasa which means "sacred land," and is a treasured part of Tibetan culture, religion and history. The palace was first constructed in 637 A.D. by Emperor Songtsen Gampo to greet his princess and as a meditation retreat. The Fifth Dalai Lama amplified the construction of the palace in 1645 and it continued to be the chief residence of the Dalai Lama until the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, fled to India after the failure of the Tibetan uprising in 1959. The Chinese government has since made the Potala Palace into a museum. The Palace stands at the top of the hill with the highest point reaching a majestic 12,359 feet high, with a red wing, a white wing, Buddhist study halls, chapels and the tomb of the 13th Dalai Lama.
Swayambhunath is an ancient spiritual stupa sitting on top of a hill in Kathmandu Vally in Nepal. 365 steps lead up to the lion guarded gate which protects a golden spire at the top inscribed with Buddha eyes looking in all four directions. Practitioners of Buddhism and Hinduism visit the temple each day to worship. Legend says that the site was built where the Buddha himself planted a lotus flower that blossomed into a lake and covered the entire Kathmandu Valley.
