Riyadh: Saudi Arabia’s ancient desert city AlUla has been included on a list of Seven Wonders of the World for 2023, according to Conde Nast Traveler.
The list was compiled by award-winning travel writer Aaron Millar, who described AlUla as a place of “extraordinary history and cultural heritage.”
"At the end of 2022, the site officially opened its doors to visitors and, in doing so, unveiled a more than a 200,000-year-old piece of Arabian history," claims Millar.
Saudi Minister of Culture, Prince Badr bin Farhan Al Saud, praised the magazine for including AlUla in its list. “AlUla, with its unique beauty and stunning nature, is among the Seven Wonders of the World for the year 2023 on the list of Condé Nast magazine,” Bin Farhan said in Tweet.
Other destinations included among Millar's Seven Wonders of the World for 2023 include Mont Saint-Michel in France, Argentina's Perito Moreno Glacier, Bhutan's Tiger's Nest Monastery, Cappadocia in Turkey, the Lake District in the United Kingdom, and South Africa's Sardine Run.
Heritage in AlUla
Located 1,100km from Riyadh, AlUla is a region filled with natural and human history covering a vast area of desert, oasis, sandstone mountains and ancient cultural sites. Remains of past civilisations date back to 7,000 years ago, and AlUla is also home to Hegra, one of the Nabataean Kingdom’s key cities and Saudi Arabia’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site.
AlUla is a unique and extraordinary landscape because of one region's three distinct geological eras. The earliest geologic ages formed the rocks of AlUla during the Precambrian Arabian shield rocks, which are marked by different sedimentary rock layers.
Laid down over millions of years, these rock layers contain a permanent record of the Earth's past, including the fossilised remains of plants and animals buried when the sediments were formed.
