Replicas of Iconic Landmarks and Where to Find Them

The symbol of imperial France, from which some of the world’s most famous streets radiate, including the Champs-Élysées, was constructed in 1836 and dedicated to Napoleon’s Grand Armée. The Arc de Triomphe was itself modeled on the victory arches of ancient Rome. The Washington Square Arch in New York City’s Washington Park, dedicated in 1895, was designed by famed architect Stanford White, who drew inspiration from Roman architecture and the Arc de Triomphe.

Big Ben, the world’s most famous clock tower, was actually the name first given to the tower’s bell. The structure was completed in 1859, and since then its image has been embedded in British culture. Less well known than Big Ben, but unmistakably similar to the London landmark, is the clock tower erected in Surgut, Siberia, in 2004 that is part of a building that houses a school for foreign languages

The Brooklyn Bridge, opened in 1883, was the first to use steel for cable wire and was one of the 19th century’s great triumphs of engineering. Its construction accelerated the amalgamation of the city of Brooklyn with New York City. There is a Brooklyn Bridge in Las Vegas too, about one-third the size of the original. It comprises part of the New York “skyline” at the New York New York Casino.

The Christ the Redeemer statue that stands at the summit of Mount Corcovado above Rio de Janeiro is one of the most famous statues in the world. It is the largest Art Deco-style statue, standing 98 feet tall, and its arms stretch 92 feet wide. The statue was erected in 1931. Three years later, the cardinal patriarch of Lisbon visited Rio de Janeiro and was so taken by it that he asked the Portuguese president to build a similar one in Lisbon. That statue, Christ the King, was constructed in the 1950s near the River Tagus to thank God for sparing Portugal from the horrors of World War II.

The Colosseum, the center of entertainment and cultural activity in ancient Rome, is among the most famous structures from antiquity. The Colosseum’s image can be found on virtually every pizzeria box or menu in the United States. Its very name suggests enormity and power. Also known as the Flavian Amphitheatre, the Colosseum opened in AD 80. Las Vegas also has a Colosseum, at Caesar’s Palace. The hotel’s Colosseum replaced its Circus Maximus Showroom in 2003.

If you can’t get to the actual timeless pyramids in Giza, Egypt, you can see something similar in Las Vegas. The Luxor Hotel & Casino opened on the Vegas Strip in October 1993 at a cost of $375 million, and its pyramid, at 30 stories, is three-fourths the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza. However, the pyramid has caused some consternation, with people claiming to have been affected by an odd energy emitted from the structure. There are claims that guests have seen the ghosts of workers who died during construction. The Luxor was also the site of a bomb placed in a coffee cup. The explosion killed a hotel employee.

The Eiffel Tower, the most visited landmark in the world, is also among the most imitated. A half a world away from the real Eiffel Tower in Paris is a theme park in the Chinese city of Shenzhen, which has many scale reproductions of world-renowned landmarks. Among them is a 354-foot replica of the steel-lattice marvel that opened for visitors at the 1889 World’s Fair. You can find other faux Eiffel Towers in Mexico and, of course, in Las Vegas.

A replica of the Empire State Building stands with the rest of the iconic Gotham skyline at the New York New York Casino in Las Vegas. Sixty-six years after the Empire State Building rose over Midtown Manhattan to become the tallest building in the world, the funsters in Sin City built the ersatz Big Apple featuring the Empire State Building, King Kong not included.

A half-mile long replica of the Great Wall of China was built in the central Florida town of Kissimmee. It was part of a 75-acre theme park called Splendid China, which celebrated the architecture and cultural glory of China. The park was the brainchild of a Taiwanese businessman and cost $100 million to build. It opened in 1993 and closed 10 years later, unable to compete with Disney World in Orlando. There is also 2.5-mile replica of the Great Wall in the central Chinese town of Nanchang.

When British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered King Tut’s Tomb in Egypt in 1922, it created a sensation. The tomb was virtually intact, containing all kinds of artifacts as well as the mummified remains of King Tutankhamun, the teenager king who died in the 14th century BC. The real tomb is in Egypt and is one of that country’s biggest attractions, drawing 4,000 tourists a day. The replica tomb in Las Vegas draws tourists as well. The exhibit, once housed at the Luxor Hotel & Casino, is now located in four rooms at the Las Vegas Natural History Museum.

The quirky Leaning Tower of Pisa, a 185-foot white marble landmark in northern Italy, draws tourists who pose for the inevitable photo of either holding up or pushing over the 14th century tower. There is a replica of the tower in Niles, Illinois, built by businessman Robert Ilg in 1934, that is about half the height of the original. Its angle of lean is less than that of the real tower.

London Bridge was indeed falling down in the 1960s, and the British were not keen on spending the money to repair it. Enter Robert P. McCulloch, an eccentric entrepreneur from the United States. McCulloch had founded the community of Lake Havasu City in Arizona hoping to create a tourist destination, but he lacked an attraction. McCulloch found out that the British were going to knock down crumbling London Bridge and decided to buy it in 1968. He dismantled it and shipped it across the Atlantic and all the way to Arizona. All told, it cost McCullouch $7 million and the bridge opened in 1971. McCulloch’s ploy worked. Lake Havasu exploded in population, and the bridge is a major tourist draw.

Americans are familiar with the famous visages of presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt peering down from Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. The 60-foot high faces of the presidents were the handiwork of sculptor Gutzon Borglum and his son Lincoln and were completed in 1941. Not as well known is a replica constructed in a park in the Chinese city of Chongqing. The park, which is dedicated to the Americans who fought alongside the Chinese, has several other replicas of U.S. monuments.

Cinderella Castle at DisneyWorld’s Magic Kingdom Park is modeled after Neuschwanstein Castle, built in the 19th century by King Ludwig II of Bavaria in honor of composer Richard Wagner. A replica of the castle opened near Moscow in 2013 and serves as a private kindergarten.

Nashville, Tennessee, has been called the “Athens of the South,” and in 1897 the city constructed a full-scale replica of the storied Parthenon in Athens, Greece, for the Tennessee Centennial Exposition. Other buildings for the event were modeled on Athenian treasures, but only the Parthenon was built on the scale of the original, which was completed in 432 BC. Today, the replica serves as an art museum in Centennial Park.

Pont Alexandre III is considered to be the most ornate span in Paris, decorated with gilt bronze sculptures of winged horses. The bridge opened in 1900 during the Paris Exhibition and provides vistas of the Invalides on the left bank and the Grand Palais on the right bank. The replica in Suzhou, China, is constructed of concrete and the architectural criticism has not been kind. Suzhou, called the Venice of the East because of its many canals, is famous for its number of western cultural imitations.

Sometimes an imitation is not considered the sincerest form of flattery. A full-size duplication of the ageless Great Sphinx of Giza, the original of which was built in the 26th century BC, was erected in a theme park near Shijiazhuang in the Hebei province in China in 2014. That triggered outrage among Egyptians who considered the replica an insult to their heritage, and they filed a grievance with world heritage agency UNESCO. The Chinese responded by beginning to dismantle the copycat Sphinx, separating the head from the body. However, they reportedly have reattached the head, based on reports out of China. Another replica of the Sphinx exists in Chuzhou, Anhui province in China.

St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City is the center of the Catholic faith, supposedly built on the grave of St. Peter. It is the final resting place of 91 popes. The basilica is renowned for its Roman Renaissance and Baroque design. You might be surprised to learn that there is a replica of St. Peter’s in the Ivory Coast, known as the Basilique Notre-Dame de la Paix de Yamoussoukro, also called the “African Vatican.” It is the world’s largest basilica. The idea belonged to former President Félix Houphouët-Boigny. The project was completed in 1989 and is an almost identical replica. Stained glass windows were imported from Europe, and the house of worship has 7,000 air-conditioned seats. The price tag was reportedly $300 million.

Stonehenge, one of the most famous prehistoric structures in Europe, has been imitated in many places, including a foam-made copycat in Natural Bridge, Virginia, and an automotive replica in Alliance, Nebraska called Carhenge. If you want to see a replica as astronomically accurate as the original, there is the one in Maryhill, Washington. It was commissioned in the early 20th century by businessman Samuel Hill and dedicated in July 1918 to honor those who were killed during World War I, even before that conflict had ended.

Sydney Harbor Bridge, the world’s largest steel arch span, is another of the western cultural knockoffs that can be found in the Chinese city Suzhou. The copy is smaller than the original and is made of granite. The real Sydney Harbor Bridge is just over 3,700 feet, or 1,149 meters, long, while the replica checks in at only 104 feet. The original bridge design was based on Hell Gate Bridge in New York City and was completed in 1932.

The Taj Mahal is the world’s most famous mausoleum, built between 1631 and 1648 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of one of his wives. The Taj Mahal, a UNESCO world heritage site, is considered the pinnacle of Muslim art in India and the nation’s most famous monument. Neighboring Bangladesh built a replica of the Taj Mahal in the city of Sonargaon in 2008 that was funded by Bangladeshi filmmaker Ahsanullah Moni who wanted all people to have access to at least a replica of the landmark. Indian officials were not pleased, and the construction of the replica caused a diplomatic row between the two countries.

One of the iconic symbols of the United States, the Statue of Liberty has been replicated many times in many places. A gift from France, the statue was dedicated in 1886 in New York Harbor. Three years later, the United States returned the favor, presenting a statue to the French, about one-fourth the size of the original, on the centennial of the French Revolution. Today, you can see the statue on the southern end of Île aux Cygnes, an artificial island built in the Seine in the 19th century.

The Western Wall, sometimes called the Wailing Wall, is the last portion of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and dates from 20 BC during the reign of King Herod. The Romans destroyed all but the western portion in AD 70. Today, thousands come to visit and pray or leave messages in the wall, and it is one of Judaism’s holiest sites. There is a replica in Russia, located near the Moscow Choral Synagogue. The structure is 49 feet long and about 10 feet high, compared with the original, which is 160 feet long and about 60 feet high. Like the original, people leave notes in the wall in Moscow.

Another recognizable symbol in London’s cityscape is the Tower Bridge. The span has been in service for more than 120 years. It was built to handle road traffic as London grew to be one of the biggest cities in the world in the 19th century. You can find a replica in the Chinese city of Suzhou — like many other western landmark copies. However, that version has more towers than the original and no raising apparatus.

Another tourist magnet in Rome is the Trevi Fountain, a superb example of Baroque style that was designed by Nicola Salvi and Giuseppe Pannini and completed in 1762. It is arguably the world’s most famous fountain, and according to legend, if you toss a coin in the fountain you will return to Rome. If you can’t get to Rome, the Eternal City, you can see a replica of the fountain in Las Vegas, also called Sin City. The Trevi Fountain clone can be found outside Caesars Palace.