Levuka Port Town, Fiji

LEVUKA PORT TOWN (Fiji)

Tiny Levuka on the island of Ovalau was the capital of Fiji until 1877. Today it's an exceptional example of late colonial port towns in the Pacific. Its low line of buildings among coconut and mango trees along the beach front was used by Americans and Europeans who were always outnumbered by the indigenous community, ensuring the integration of local building traditions.

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(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)

Tongariro National Park, New Zealand

TONGARIRO NATIONAL PARK (New Zealand)

The world's sixth-oldest national park is in the center of New Zealand's North Island. It contains three volcanoes: Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe, and the titular Tongariro. Much of the landscape is sacred to the Maori people, symbolizing the spiritual links between this community and its environment: it was the UNESCO World Heritage List's first "cultural landscape."

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(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)

Al Zubarah, Qatar

AL ZUBARAH (Qatar)

Ruins are all that remain of this originally nearly-1,000-acre fortified city on the NW coast of Qatar. Founded in the first half of the 18th century by the founder of Bahrain's Al Khalifa royal family, it was once a center of global trade between the Strait of Hormuz and the western arm of the Persian Gulf. Today it is Qatar's most substantial archaeological site.

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(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)

Bikini Atoll

BIKINI ATOLL (Marshall Islands in the central Pacific Ocean)

From 1946 to 1958 the U.S. detonated 23 nuclear weapons in the open air and underwater at the Bikini Atoll in the then-U.S. territory of the Marshall Islands, causing untold damage to the health of inhabitants of islands in the region and far beyond--as far as the U.S. and Europe. The Atoll lent its name to a swimwear style that started in 1946 and continues to this day.

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(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)

Chief Roi Mata's Domain

CHIEF ROI MATA'S DOMAIN (Vanuatu, Melanesia)

Oral tradition and archaeology meet at the sites of the mass grave and former residence of powerful Melanesian 13th-century paramount chief Roi Mata of Vanuatu. The grave, found by a French archaeologist in 1967, contains the bodies of over 25 members of his retinue. Roi Mata's reputedly peaceful reign came after he united the tribes into a single army.

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(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)

The Sydney Opera House

THE SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE (Sydney, Australia)

This 1973 "urban sculpture" at the tip of a peninsula projecting into Sydney Harbour is made of groups of interlocking sail-shaped shells housing two main performance halls and several smaller ones, plus a recording studio and a restaurant. Taking 15 years to build, many of them swamped in controversy, at last it stands as tall as a 22-story building.

(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)

The Ifugao Rice Terraces

THE IFUGAO RICE TERRACES (The Philippines)

The Ifugao people in remote areas of the northern Philippines have been shaping the land to fulfill their needs for over 2,000 years, handing down the knowledge of building and maintaining these life-giving structures from one generation to the next. The terraces blend engineering, social cohesion, agriculture, and beauty into a sacred tradition.

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(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)

The Easter Island Statues

THE EASTER ISLAND STATUES (Moai) (over 2,000 miles west of Chile in the Pacific)

Hundreds of these statues, properly called moai, were carved between the years 1250 and 1500. They represent ancestors guarding the land. Many were toppled in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, possibly as the result of internal conflict among the people. The largest was 33 feet high and weighed almost 81 tons! They are being restored.

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(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)