Children play on a bridge on a foggy day in Beijing on Sunday. - REUTERS

ZURICH (Reuters):

What are the greatest architectural achievements in history? Rome's Colosseum? The Great Wall of China? The Pyramids of Giza?

That's what millions of people are asking themselves as they vote in the largest global poll ever conducted, an attempt to recast ancient history by ranking the top architectural marvels as the 'new' seven wonders of the world.

Besides the vast scale of the poll, itself a wonder, the new list may reveal what the wired voters in today's global village view differently from the ancient Greeks, who laid out the original seven wonders more than two thousand years ago.

About 200,000 people are voting online or firing off mobile phone text messages every day, organisers estimate - and the final total of ballots cast before the result is announced on July 7 could top 100 million.

The first list of the most impressive monuments of the ancient world was compiled by the Greeks and included sites around the Mediterranean such as the Lighthouse of Alexandria and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The only wonder to have survived to the present day is the Pyramids of Giza, and that inspired Swiss-Canadian adventurer Bernard Weber, who decided the start of a new millennium was the right moment to find a consensus "on the last 2,000 years of human achievement".

LARGEST POLL

The number of votes probably make it the largest poll ever undertaken on a global basis, said pollster John Zogby, but that did not make it a scientific exercise.

A genuine sample poll would have to take a representative cross-section of society by age, culture, sex and other demographics, while the Seven Wonders vote is open to anyone with an interest.

There is no mechanism to prevent people voting more than once, provided they have the desire to do so by setting up more than one Internet or mobile phone profile.

Each has to pick exactly seven sites, which should help prevent too much skewing in favour of local sites.

The vote is, however, still unlikely to reach the totals of national elections in large democracies such as the United States, where 122 million people voted in 2004.