The Taj Mahal, the Coliseum and the Great Wall. These are just three of the landmarks voted the New Seven Wonders of the World in a 2007 global poll. But what of the Seven Wonders of Hong Kong? From the historical to the modern, the obvious to the surprising, and the natural to the man-made, this is our shortlist of the top 20 contenders. But we need your help to determine the final list, so read on then vote or nominate your own at timeout.com.hk/sevenwonders.

By Ben Sin, Andrea Yu, Patrick Brzeski and Hamish Mckenzie

1. Happy Valley Racecourse

Wedged in the eponymous valley, surrounded by towering skyscrapers, and with a capacity of around 54,000, this is undoubtedly one of the most unique racing venues in the world. Built in 1845 on what was swampy, flat ground – then known as Wong Nai Chung (Cantonese for Yellow Mud Stream) – the track has weathered disasters (most notably the 1918 fire that killed more than 500) and rebuilds to become the iconic gambling mecca it is today. Incidentally, the name Happy Valley was coined by the government as a euphemism for ‘cemetery’, the area being the final resting place for the British soldiers who set up camp there in the early 1840s and fell victim to the malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

2. Tai Long Wan

Accessible only by boat, helicopter or a 90-minute hike over a mountain path, ambitious beach bums are well rewarded for their trek with long stretches of clear white sand bordered by greenery, and some of the clearest waters in Hong Kong. This is the best of Hong Kong’s many fine beaches, and one of the few places where surfing is viable. And on a clear day at sunset/sunrise: soul-filling.

3. Chungking Mansions

The building itself is nothing to write home about (actually, that’s an understatement), but Chungking Mansions is a cultural institution, a meeting point for people representing the farthest flung corners of the globe, but especially Africa and South Asia. The energy is palpable, the odours almost edible, and the colours fantastic. It’s also the setting for one of Hong Kong’s great moments in film: Wong Kar-wai’s inimitable classic Chungking Express, a wonder in itself.

4. Star Ferry

Crowded beside your fellow city-dwellers on an old wooden bench, with the twin skylines of HK Island and Kowloon twinkling down at you, there’s nowhere more emphatically Hong Kong than a cruise across the harbour on the upper deck of the Star Ferry. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re heading to or from home in Central or Kowloon, in its simple, age-old way, this 122-year-old Hong Kong institution unites passers-through and lifetime residents alike, in the democratic promise of a cheap ride to the other side.

5. The Skyline

Widely hailed as the world’s best skyline, the giddying high-rises along Victoria Harbour glitter at night time and stand proudly in front of a dramatic range of mountain peaks. Our skyline boasts 43 buildings that are more than 200 metres tall, with 30 of those built in the last decade. According to an algorithm used in the Almanac of Architecture and Design to measure the “impressiveness” of the world’s skylines, Hong Kong tops the list easily, defeating New York by 84,922 points to 35,811. Blade Runner clichés aside, it still takes our breath away.

6. The MTR

Sure, the MTR is one of the cleanest, fastest, most efficient and heavily used domestic transit systems in the world, but the real beauty of the “Underground Metal” (as it is known in Cantonese) is its power to transform. From Tsing Yi to Tseung Kwan O – and you can throw the likes of Chai Wan, Yuen Long and Tsuen Wan in there too – the MTR has put previously isolated districts and their residents in easy reach of the city proper, boosting property prices and heralding economic boom times in the process. Next up: Sai Ying Pun, Kennedy Town and Aberdeen.

7. Tsing Ma Bridge

Forget about the fact it is almost 1.4km long and 200 metres tall, and that it’s the longest bridge of its type that carries rail traffic. Just look at this gleaming beast at night, when it sparkles above calm waters and announces to all-comers that Hong Kong is a place of architectural vision and urban grandeur. Connecting Tsing Yi and Ma Wan islands, it is not so much another landmark in our unsurpassed skyline as it is a testament to a formidable feat of engineering.

8. Temple of 10,000 Buddhas

Hong Kong has many temples, but the Temple of 10,000 Buddhas gets our pick for many reasons: the picturesque landscape nearby (on a clear day you can see the Amah Rock), the wonderfully secluded location that’s imbued with a sense of peace and tranquillity, and the fact that, in a day and age when everything is exaggerated for the sake of marketing, the Temple of 10,000 Buddhas is actually better than advertised. There are actually more than 13,000 Buddha statues inside.

9. High Island Reservoir

The largest reservoir in Hong Kong, the most expensive public works project in the province in its day, and one of the most acclaimed engineering feats in the history of our SAR, the High Island Reservoir deserves its superlatives. To create this 280 million cubic metre fresh water storage facility stretching across the sea between High Island and the mainland peninsula of Sai Kung, two major dams and three subsidiary structures were built out into the open water. Seven thousand slabs of concrete – or, “dolosses” – each weighing 25,000kg were used to build the primary walls. The sea water was then pumped out, the bottom of the bowl deepened and the resultant gigantic water jug flushed several times with stored rain water. Depending on recent rainfall, standing on the dam today, you’ll often find the sea water and fresh water on opposite sides of the wall at wildly unequal levels – a truly uncanny sight and a testament to titanic strength of the structure beneath your feet.

10. Ninepin Islands

This group of 29 islands, located in Hong Kong’s southeastern waters, was created over 140 million years ago by a volcanic eruption near Sai Kung. Strong winds and heavy tides have eroded the islands, resulting in spectacular sea caves and arches. Here also is what the Royal Geographic Society describes as “probably the most spectacular development of columnar hexagonal jointing in tuffs in the world” (tuffs are a type of rock consisting of consolidated volcanic ash). Aside from a Tin Hau temple on South Ninepin Island, the group is void of all inhabitants and is accessible only by private boat.

11. Dragon Garden

Aside from appearing in the 1974 James Bond flick The Man with the Golden Gun, the Dragon Garden takes on wondrous appeal for a number of reasons: it has history, it’s beautiful, and it showcases the best of classical Chinese architecture in a tranquil environment. The garden was built over a period of 20 years by Dr Lee Iu Cheung, who bought it from the government in 1949 in an effort to beautify Hong Kong. It mostly served as a private garden and weekend villa, but in the 1970s it was opened to the public for two years. Here, natural streams course into pools, fountains and waterfalls, and a wide diversity of plants, trees and flowers make it an even more alluring proposition. In 2006, the garden was saved from the claws of development after a last-ditch campaign succeeded in getting the site heritage status. Plans are afoot to make it a public park.

12. Port of Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s naturally sheltered and deep harbour has long been crucial to the territory’s economic development, but what makes the port a wonder is its continued efficiency and centrality to trade in the city, now as a container port that handles 88 per cent of all the cargo that moves through our borders. About 450 container liner services arrive here every week, serving more than 500 destinations, making it one of the world’s busiest container ports. From 1987 to 1989, then 1992 to 1997, and 1999 to 2004, it was the busiest. The port, which starts in West Kowloon and stretches along the western seaboard, remains a firm reminder of just how vital the shipping industry is to Hong Kong.

13. The Peak

As a symbol, Victoria Peak is one of Hong Kong’s most potent, calling to mind ambivalent colonial sentiments that are tinged with shame. From 1904 to 1947, The Peak, at around 552m tall, was the exclusive domain of the coloniser, with local Chinese barred from living in the mountain’s cooler climes. The Peak’s superlative natural assets, however, are not to be denied. Blessed with forests of bamboo and fern, and bird life that quickly dispels any sense of proximity to a bustling, noisy metropolis, here is a playground that is now, thankfully, open to all. And that’s to say nothing of those views, which on a clear day not only offer a top-down look at the city but also stretch all the way to Mainland China.

14. Hong Kong International Airport

Renowned British architect Norman Foster has done much for Hong Kong, giving us the HSBC building in 1985, and this, our extraordinary engineering marvel of an airport, in 1999. Arriving in Hong Kong is a breeze compared to most major cities, and for once our urban-planner overlords got it dead right. From its hefty price tag as the world’s most expensive airport project ever, to its floor-to-ceiling windows designed to explode during ultra-high wind typhoons – to protect the structural integrity of the whole – this high-efficiency behemoth truly is wondrous.

15. The Peak Tram

To grasp the wonder of the Peak Tram, dream back to 1888, to a time when the only sounds to be heard in Central were the clippity-clop of passing horseshoes and the bark of hawkers. Now imagine the thoughts of the tram’s first passengers as they were hauled up the side of the Island’s tallest mountain by sheer mechanical force rather than in Sedan Chairs perched atop the bent backs of impoverished local day-labourers, as they had been for decades. In its time, the Peak Tram was South Asia’s greatest engineering marvel, and in its ongoing cycle each day, it stands as a testament to our city’s age-old, entrepreneurial ethos.

16. Victoria Harbour

During a crucial, story-turning scene in the 1986 Hong Kong classic film A Better Tomorrow, a broken and battered Mark Gor (played by Chow Yun-fat) looks at the harbour and says: “Hong Kong really is beautiful.” It is this moment that inspires Gor to pick himself up and, in his own words, “get back what’s mine.” Our busy harbour, surrounded by an iconic skyline, has been the centrepiece of many a movie and rightfully so. The harbour’s deep, sheltered waters have also been key to Hong Kong’s development as a leading world city, lending the territory trade and military advantages over centuries.

17. Pink Dolphins

Hong Kong is home to the pinkest dolphins in the world. These rare species of dolphins, properly named the Sousa chinensis, turn pink when blood flows to their skin. Although the same species of dolphins are found in Australia and other parts of Asia, our ones are by far the pinkest – though no one really knows why. “There have been theories as to why the ones specifically near Hong Kong are the pinkest,” says Janet Walker of the Hong Kong Dolphin Watch. “Some scientists thinks the muddy South China Sea causes loss of pigment in the dolphins, others believe that due to lack of sharks and predators here, the dolphins have slowly evolved to lose their camouflaged skin colour.” So it’s a wonder and a mystery rolled into one.

18. Wong Tai Sin Temple

The Great Immortal Wong! What’s more wonder-worthy than that? Dedicated to the aforementioned holy namesake, this 18,000 square metre Taoist temple was built in 1921 and originally only open to ‘Pu Yi Tan’ Taoists and their families, until the government made it available to the general public in 1934. Its traditional gold roof, imposing red pillars, intricate blue lattice work and multicoloured carvings make it one of Hong Kong’s grandest and most popular shrines.

19. Chi Lin Nunnery

Founded in the 1930s, this sprawling Buddhist temple complex saw massive renovation in the 1990s, with its many courtyards, temples and Chinese gardens rebuilt in the style of Tang Dynasty traditional Chinese architecture. No mere façade refurbishment, the buildings were rebuilt from the ground up, entirely from wood and without the use of any nails, in the manner of authentic Tang construction practices. Using the age-old system of complexly interlocked dovetails, the buildings hang together like a magic box, and are the only remaining structures built in this timeless way.

20. The Big Buddha

After 17 years of overcoming perpetual fundraising and construction challenges, the beneficent lord of Lantau, the massive Tian Tan Buddha, was finally opened to visitors on December 29, 1993. To construct the unprecedented statue, a five-metre model was built from gypsum, and the 202 huge bronze pieces that make up the Buddha today were cast from the model at a factory in the New Territories, later to be transported to the Lantau site for assembly. At the time of its completion in 1989, at 34 meters tall, it was the largest free standing outdoor bronze Buddha in the world. Hopefully, sometime soon, one big Buddha or the other will arise from its beatific posture to tromp across the ocean floor to challenge his counterpart to Big Buddha Battle (although, admittedly, that’s rather un-Buddha-ish). There can be only one.  

Cast your votes for the list here.