The 28 official finalists also include Angel Falls (Venezuela), Galapagos (Ecuador), Grand Canyon (The United States), Iguazu Falls (Brazil/Argentine), Bay of Fundy, Black Forest, Bu Tinah Shoals, Cliff of Moher, Dead Sea, El Yunque, and Great Barrier Reef.
 
Halong Bay, Jeita Grotto, Jeju Island, and Kilimanjaro, Komodo, Maldives, Masurian Lake District, Matterhorn/Cervino, Milford Sound, Mud Volcanoes, Puerto Princesa Underground River, Sundarbans, Table Mountain, Uluru, Vesuvius and Yushan, were also added to the list.

Competition organizers expect more than a billion people to participate in the online voting, which will continue into 2011, when the finalists by categories will be announced.

A panel of experts chose the finalists among the 77 nominees that gained the most votes in an early round of polling. People had suggested 261 landmarks in countries all over the world.

The panel chaired by Federico Mayor, former chief of Unesco, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, picked the finalists depending on geographical balance, diversity and the importance to human life.

The Amazon Rainforest, also known as Amazonia, the Amazon jungle or the Amazon Basin, encompasses seven million square kilometers (1.7 billion acres), though the forest itself occupies some 5.5 million square kilometers (1.4 billion acres), located within nine nations: Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana; Suriname and Venezuela.

The Amazon represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforests and comprises the largest and most species-rich tract of tropical rainforest in the world.

The Amazon River is the largest river in the world by volume, with a total flow greater than the top ten rivers worldwide combined.

It accounts for approximately one-fifth of the total world river flow and has the biggest drainage basin on the planet. Not a single bridge crosses the Amazon.

(END) EEP/LVT