In Australia, organizers said an estimated 10 million people, nearly half the population, took part, with Sydney Harbour Bridge another of the landmarks to go dark.
Hong Kong's neon waterfront dimmed, while in Singapore all decorative lights were switched off and non-critical operational lights lowered at Changi Airport for an hour.
In Japan, which is reeling from a huge earthquake and tsunami that struck this month, several thousand people and a hotel-turned-evacuation center in the northeast marked Earth Hour.
"People in Japan will have a special feeling this year when they turn the switches off," WWF spokeswoman Hideko Arai told AFP ahead of the switch-off.
In Russia some 30 cities were joining in, from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the most easterly city on the Kamchatka peninsula, through Moscow to Murmansk in the far north.
Moscow was to turn off floodlighting on more than 70 buildings and bridges, including the 540-meter (1,780-foot) television tower and the 32-storey Moscow State University building.
In Athens monuments being darkened included the Acropolis, the parliament building, the presidential palace and the temple of Poseidon near the city.
In Italy, more than 200 towns and cities took part. The Ponte Vecchio in Florence, the Tower of Pisa and the Colosseum in Rome all turned off their lights for an hour.
Lights went out in 52 Romanian cities, where concerts and candle-light marches were organized. In Bucharest, dozens of people cycled through the city center before gathering in George Enescu square.
In Argentina, Buenos Aires switched off the spotlight on its landmark Obelisk.
In South Africa the Grammy award winning group Soweto Gospel choir along with other local musicians treated hundreds of people to a free candelight concert in the township of Soweto. Music fans waved lit candles while others used their cellphones to light up the stage.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon backed Earth Hour, urging people to celebrate the shared quest to "protect the planet and ensure human well-being."
"Let us use 60 minutes of darkness to help the world see the light," he said.
Ridley said he never expected the Earth Hour movement to become so large.
"We didn't imagine right at the beginning... it would be on the scale that it is now. And the fact that it is so cross cultural, beyond borders and race and religion," he said.
http://news.yahoo.com/Linkback:
https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=39537.0
