Natural Wonders of the World

What Is a Natural Wonder?

Some places on Earth are so amazing that they take your breath away. A canyon so deep you cannot see the bottom. A waterfall that thunders like a hundred drums. A reef so big it can be seen from space. We call these places natural wonders.

A natural wonder is a beautiful or astonishing place made by nature, not by people. Nobody built them. Instead, they were shaped slowly over a very, very long time — by rivers, ice, wind, waves, volcanoes, and living creatures.

In this book we will travel the world to visit some of the most wonderful natural places of all. Some are made of rock and water. Some are made of living things. Every one of them shows just how amazing our planet can be. Let's begin our journey!

The Grand Canyon: A River's Giant Trench

In the United States, there is a canyon so enormous it is hard to believe. It is called the Grand Canyon, and it is one of the biggest canyons in the world. It is more than a kilometre deep and so wide that the people on the far side look like tiny dots.

How did such a huge ditch appear? The answer is a river. The Colorado River flows along the bottom, and over millions of years the rushing water slowly wore away the rock, cutting deeper and deeper. Bit by bit, grain by grain, the river carved out the whole canyon.

The walls of the Grand Canyon are striped in red, orange and brown. Each stripe is a layer of rock from a different time long ago, like the pages of a giant stone book. It reminds us that nature can build wonders with patience, given enough time.

Mount Everest: The Roof of the World

Far away in Asia, in a mighty mountain range called the Himalayas, stands the highest mountain on Earth: Mount Everest. Its snowy peak reaches nearly 9 kilometres into the sky — so high that planes fly past it.

It is so cold and windy at the top that very few people can climb it, and even they need bottled air to breathe. The air up there is so thin it is hard to fill your lungs.

Amazingly, Everest is still growing, very slowly, as giant pieces of the Earth's surface push together and crumple the land upwards. You can read more about how the land rises and folds into peaks in Mountains of the World.

Niagara Falls: Thundering Water

A waterfall is one of nature's most exciting sights — a place where a river suddenly tumbles over a cliff. One of the most famous in the world is Niagara Falls, on the border between Canada and the United States.

At Niagara, a huge amount of water pours over the edge every single second, crashing down with a roar you can hear from far away. A cloud of mist rises into the air, and on sunny days rainbows appear in the spray.

Niagara is not the tallest waterfall in the world — many others drop much further. But it is one of the most powerful, because so much water flows over it. Standing nearby, you can feel the ground tremble.

The Great Barrier Reef: A Living Wonder

Not all wonders are made of rock. Off the coast of Australia lies the Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef on Earth. It is so big it stretches for more than 2,000 kilometres and can be seen from space!

A reef is built by coral — and here is the amazing part: coral is made by millions of tiny living animals called polyps. Each one builds a hard little home around itself, and over thousands of years these homes pile up into a giant reef.

The reef is bursting with life. Brightly coloured fish, sea turtles, sharks, starfish and octopuses all make their homes there. It is like a busy underwater city. To explore more sea creatures, dive into Our Amazing Oceans.

The Amazon Rainforest: The Greenest Place on Earth

In South America grows the Amazon Rainforest, the largest rainforest in the world. It is so vast that it covers parts of several countries and is home to more kinds of plants and animals than anywhere else on the planet.

Here it is warm and wet all year round, and rain falls almost every day. The trees grow so tall and close together that their leaves form a green roof called the canopy. Beneath it live jaguars, monkeys, sloths, colourful parrots and tiny frogs — millions of different creatures.

People sometimes call the Amazon the "lungs of the Earth," because its billions of trees help clean the air we all breathe. It is a living wonder that helps the whole world.

Wonders of Ice and Fire

Some wonders are cold, and some are hot. Both are amazing.

In the far north and south, and high on tall mountains, there are glaciers — rivers of ice that move so slowly you cannot see them creep. Over time they carve out valleys and shape the land. Whole regions of the world, like the icy lands near the poles, are covered in these gigantic sheets of ice.

Far hotter are the volcanoes, mountains that can burst open and pour out glowing, melted rock called lava. Some islands, like those of Hawaii, were actually built by volcanoes rising up from the bottom of the sea. To discover how these fiery mountains work, read All About Volcanoes.

Looking After Our Wonders

The world's natural wonders are precious, and many of them need our help. Coral reefs can become sick when the sea grows too warm. Rainforests can shrink when too many trees are cut down. Glaciers are melting as the planet heats up.

That is why people all over the world work hard to protect these special places. Some wonders are turned into national parks, where the land, plants and animals are kept safe and looked after. Visitors are asked to be gentle: to take their litter home, stay on the paths, and never harm the wildlife.

When we protect a natural wonder, we are saving it for everyone — including children who are not even born yet. These places belong to the whole world.

What We Learned

What an adventure! We have seen the deep Grand Canyon carved by a river, the towering peak of Mount Everest, the thundering water of Niagara Falls, the living Great Barrier Reef, and the green, rainy Amazon Rainforest. We also met wonders of ice and fire, from slow glaciers to fiery volcanoes.

Every one of these wonders was made by nature, over a very long time, and every one is worth protecting. Our planet is full of amazing places — and there are still many, many more to discover.

Ready for more adventures? Stand among the giants in Mountains of the World, or dive beneath the waves in Our Amazing Oceans.