The magazine described Son Doong cave in Viet Nam’s Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park as big enough to “accommodate the Washington Monument” and “fit a pair of Boeing 747s side by side”.
“The cave is more than five miles long-about five times longer than its nearest competitor for the world’s longest, Deer Cave in Sarawak, Malaysia,” it wrote. “A shimmering blue river runs through it. Most spectacularly, a jungle flourishes under shafts of sunlight in stretches where the ceiling fell in long ago”.
The Smithsonian list also includes Cern, the God particle laboratory in Switzerland, a space line in New Mexico, a gorilla national park in East Africa, the perfect place for watching stars in Chile and ice caves in Alaska.
Son Doong Cave, which scientists believe was formed 2-5 million years ago, was first discovered by a local resident in 1991.
In 2009, a group of British scientists from the British Cave Research Association prepared the cave for public access in a limited capacity, after extensively surveying the area.
Son Doong is at least 6.5 kilometres long, 200 metres wide and 150 metres high. Its largest chamber is a whopping 250 metres tall.
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