York Minster (272 years of construction)

York Minster is the largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe today and the second most important after Canterbury Cathedral. Its construction began in the 1200s on the site of a small wooden church founded in 627.

This unique building, despite its gloomy, heavy and archaic appearance, annually attracts more than 2 million people from all over the world. The minster is also the seat of the Archbishop of York and the venue for Catholic services.

Chichen Itza (about 400 years of construction)

Today, only ruins remain of the political and cultural center of the Maya, located in the north of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Its construction began in the 6th century AD. It is believed that all the buildings of the center were influenced by the Toltec culture.

The most significant building of this complex with an area of 6 square kilometers is the Pyramid, designed for public speaking. The structure is 30 m high ans the square base measures 55.3 m across. Despite the fact that the Temple of Kukulkan is inferior in size to the Egyptian pyramids, its interior decoration makes it special and unlike others. Every detail inside the Pyramid carries a great semantic load.

The construction of this colossal, without exaggeration, complex took about 400 years. It is worth noting that since 1988 Chichen Itza has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Angkor Wat (418 years of construction)

Angkor Wat Temple is another ancient monument, the construction of which took more than one hundred years. The construction period of the complex covers 802–1220, that is, 418 years. The temple is located in Cambodia, on the territory of the city of the same name, whose population then amounted to 500 thousand people. This temple complex, with an area of 162 hectares and a height of 65 meters, is the largest religious monument in the world.

It is noteworthy that numerous bas-reliefs of the temple are made in stone, but the carving is so skillfully done that it seems that they are made of wood at the very least. The grandeur of Angkor Wat from an architectural and sacred point of view has provided him with the protection of UNESCO since 1925.

Petra (about 850 years of construction)

Petra is a historic and archaeological city located in southern Jordan between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. Carved directly into the rocks, the city has not suffered from time, fires and other disasters.

According to modern scientists, the construction of the city took as much as 850 years: from 600 BC to 250 AD. The choice of location to settle is due to the ability to control the flow of water, which ensured the possibility of existence.

It is also curious that according to the Bible, Petra is a mysterious desert city, where Moses drew water from the rock. Since 1985 it has been under the auspices of UNESCO.

Great Wall of China (about 2,000 years of construction)

This majestic structure, Great Wall of China, stretching for 21 kilometers and boasting 2,600 years of history, was built literally on human bones for about 2 thousand years - from 400 BC to 1600 AD.

The construction of the wall was caused by the need to protect the people of China from unfriendly neighbors (Xiongnu nomads) and required an enormous amount of material and labor resources (including guards).

It is not surprising that for so many years of building the Wall, it has acquired a huge number of rumors and legends. Today the Great Wall of China is the largest architectural monument not only in China, but in the whole world. The Chinese Wall has also been protected by UNESCO since 1987.