Published: 30 Jul 2025
With the holiday season upon us, which surveying, engineering and construction wonders are deemed holiday destinations? These cultural landmarks attract millions of visitors every year, both home and abroad and showcase perfectly how surveying skills have always been at the heart of civilisation.
Stonehenge
The UK has 32 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, which include everything from castles and abbeys to entire towns and cities, and also stretches of coastline and landscapes. The prehistoric structure at Stonehenge is sited on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England and is one of the iconic landmarks of British heritage. It consists of an outer ring of vertical standing stones, each about four metres high, 2.1 metres wide and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones. Inside is a ring of smaller bluestones, and within these are free-standing vertical stones with lintels (trilithons). The site is aligned towards the sunrise for the Summer Solstice and sunset on the Winter Solstice and how those ancient surveyors achieved this remains a mystery.
Pontcysyltte Aqueduct
A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal is a very popular tourist destination near Wrexham, North Wales. Pronounced PONT-KER-SULTH-TAY, in Welsh it means ‘The Bridge That Connects’. The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is a feat of engineering that spans across a valley over the River Dee, carrying the Llangollen Canal. It has 18 arches and was completed in 1805, having taken 10 years to design and build. It’s 3.7 metres wide – which feels pretty narrow when you’re walking across it – and is the longest aqueduct in the UK and the tallest canal aqueduct in the world.
Hoover Dam
Construction on the Hoover Dam in North America began in 1931, during the Great Depression. Such a huge concrete structure had never been built before, but the consortium that constructed it delivered it in 1936, two years ahead of schedule. It is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between Nevada and Arizona. It was originally called the Boulder Dam, but was renamed Hoover Dam in 1947, after President Herbert Hoover. The dam works towards flood control, provides irrigation for water supplies and produces hydroelectric power.
The Great Wall of China
The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications across the country, built along the northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China. The walls were built as protection against various nomadic invaders, but also as border controls for immigration and trade. The first walls date from the seventh century and the best-known sections were built by the Ming Dynasty, which lasted from 1368 to 1644. It is a spectacular engineering achievement and also incorporates castle-like defence systems – watchtowers, barracks for troops, garrison stations and signals. It too is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Great Pyramid of Giza
This triangular structure is the largest of the Egyptian pyramids. It is the tomb of Pharaoh Khufu and, from radiocarbon dating using organic material found in the pyramid and ingredients in its mortar, is estimated to be about 4,600 years old. The Great Pyramid consists of an estimated 2.3 million blocks – about 5.5 million tonnes of limestone, 8,000 tonnes of granite and 500,000 tonnes of mortar were used in the construction. The granite stones in the pyramid were transported from Aswan, more than 560 miles south of the site, while most of the limestone blocks were quarried near Giza.
Macchu Picchu
One of the wonders of South America, Machu Picchu is a fifteenth-century Inca citadel located in southern Peru. The site is on a narrow saddle between two mountain peaks, Machu Picchu and Huayna Picchu – the name Machu Picchu is often translated as ‘old mountain’ or ‘old peak’. A considerable feat of engineering, the mountain ridge is at 2,430 metres. It’s often called ‘Lost City of the Incas’ and is the most recognisable icon of the Inca Empire. Rather than being a temple, this UNESCO World Heritage site was a private city for Incan royalty. It was built by the Incas around 1450 but abandoned about 100 years later, during the Spanish conquest.
The Colosseum
A feat of curved engineering, the Colosseum is an elliptical amphitheatre and one of the most recognisable landmarks of the ancient world. Construction started in AD 72 and was completed in AD 80. It’s built of travertine limestone, volcanic rock called tuff, and brick-faced concrete. In its complete form, it could hold an audience of between 50,000 to 80,000 people. It was used for public spectacles such as gladiatorial combat, animal hunts, executions, re-enactments of famous battles, dramas on Roman mythology and even flooded for sea battles. It’s now a ruin, due to earthquakes and stone robbers, but remains a centrepiece tourist attraction in Rome.
