1 / 8 Uluru, Australia

This ancient sandstone monolith is one of Australia's <a href="http://www.atn.com.au/nt/south/uluru.htm">most famous natural landmarks</a>. It rises more than 1,100 feet above a plain in the heart of Australia and has a circumference of about 5.8 miles. Uluru is sacred to the area's original inhabitants, the <a href="http://www.parksaustralia.gov.au/uluru/people-place/amazing-facts.html">Anangu</a> people. The Anangu believe that many Uluru's nooks and crevices were <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-16/to-conquer-or-connect-negotiating-cultural-clash-at-uluru/6834882">marks</a> left by their ancestors during <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/australiaandpacific/australia/11956375/Ulurus-handover-to-Aborigines-is-marked-30-years-on.html">Dreamtime</a>, a time beyond memory when the earth was created. <br><br>A European explorer, named <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gosse-william-christie-3643">William Gosse</a>, first spotted the site in 1873 and named it Ayers' Rock after a government official. In 1985, the Australian government officially handed the site back to its traditional owners, and the Anangu leased it back to the government's park services. Many tourists <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/offtrack/climbing-the-rock:-why-do-tourists-still-climb-uluru/6603640">still climb the rock</a>, although the Anangu stand strongly against this practice because of Uluru's sacred nature.

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