Based on a similar list of great monuments from classical antiquity, the campaign, initiated by Swiss adventurer Bernard Weber, is drawing attention to the world’s greatest works of man and raising money to restore and preserve them.

The original seven wonders of the world were selected by Antipater of Sidon in 200 BC and were intended as a kind of travel guide for his fellow Mediterranean travelers.

It comprised a group of popular sites located along the Mediterranean rim including the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Temple of Artemis, the Statue of Zeus, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, and the Great Pyramid of Egypt.

Of the seven original wonders, only the Great Pyramid at Giza remains - and is in the running for a spot on the new list.

The New Seven Wonders campaign is not the first attempt to recreate a list of wonders for modernity. Similar lists have been compiled from groups such as the American Society of Civil Engineers - theirs is a decidedly 20th century list - and the Hillman Wonders of the World, which also features natural wonders and museums.

But none has been quite so populist a movement as the New Seven Wonders, which includes voices from around the globe.

A far less local bunch, the new list of 21 finalists includes sites as far-flung as the Great Wall of China, Machu Piccu in Peru, the head carvings of Easter Island, the Statue of Liberty in New York, and the Sydney Opera House.

Eight German sites had made the list of top 100 sites, though none fared so well as Neuschwanstein, a 19th century Bavarian castle in Fuessen that has jumped from number 25 to 14 since TWIG first reported the story in December.

Long one of Germany’s most popular tourist destinations, hosting 1.2 million visitors annually, Neuschwanstein sits at the foot of the Alps and is the final destination on the Romantic Road leading through Bavaria.

Though it was built in the latter half of the 19th century, it evokes a sense of medieval German life dominated by towering spired architecture and knightly staterooms, so much so that Walt Disney used Neuschwanstein as his inspiration for Sleeping Beauty castle at his Florida resort.

Bavarian King Ludwig II built it, and they came, not just for the castle itself, but for the story of the mad king who frittered away the state’s money with his three grand-scale palace projects and died mysteriously at Starnberg Lake before Neuschwanstein was completed.