Fairy chimneys in Turkey

!Fairy Chimneys Rock Structures Mount Erciyes, Mount Hasandag and Mount Göllüdag were active volcanoes in the geological periods. Alongside with many other volcanoes, eruptions of these volcanoes started in the Early Miocene (10 million years ago) and have continued until the present day. The lava produced by these volcanoes, under the Neogen lakes, formed a layer of tufa on the plateaus which varied in hardness and was between 100 and 150m thick. Other substances in the layer are ignimbrite, soft tufa, tufa, lahar, asy, clay, sandstone, marn, basalt and other agglomerates. Plateaus, having been essentially shaped with the lava from the bigger volcanoes, were continuously altered with the eruptions of smaller volcanoes

               

                                                                     

Archaeological site of Madaen, south of Baghdad, Iraq.

Iraq town seeks shift from 'terrorism' to tourism

Madain, a town of some 7,000 inhabitants, was founded by the Parthian King Mithridates I more than 2,000 years ago.

It now lies between the two main highways linking the capital with southern Iraq, as do historical sites such as the Arch of Ctesiphon and the tomb of Salman Pak -- one of the companions of the Prophet Mohammed.

"We want to restore life to this place and make it one of the beautiful places for tourism," said Abdelhadi Hassan, director of antiquities in the town, 30 kilometres (18 miles) south of Baghdad.

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Kashgar inn China

Global Heritage calls Kashgar -- on China's western border with Afghanistan and Pakistan -- one of the world's best-preserved examples of a traditional Islamic city. It's home to China's largest mosque. Kashgar is under threat from aggressive urban development and what Global Heritage calls "destructive modernization."