The Great Wall

In China, it is said that a person who has not been to the Great Wall is not a real person. The Great Wall is one of the wonders of the world and the only man-made structure visible from the moon. If the bricks and stones from which the wall is made are laid out in another wall, a meter thick and five meters high, then this wall will quietly circle the Earth along the equator. If you come to Beijing, you should not miss the opportunity to visit the Great Wall under any circumstances.

History:

Historical records trace the beginning of construction of the wall as a defensive fortification as early as 656 BC during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (Spring and Autumn Period). Construction then continued into the Warring States period (475–221 BC), when independent small states began to emerge. To protect their territories from the tribes north of the Yinshan and Yanshan mountain ranges, they built walls along their borders.

In 221 BC, the first emperor of the Qin dynasty, Shi Huangdi, conquered independent kingdoms and unified China. To protect the country from invading nomadic peoples from the north, early disparate pieces of the wall were combined and expanded. This great construction lasted nine years. It involved about 300 thousand soldiers, as well as hundreds of thousands of prisoners, convicts and peasants. This formed the basis of today’s Great Wall.

In subsequent dynasties, the expansion and strengthening of the wall continued. The greatest strengthening of the wall occurred during the Ming Dynasty, when 18 sections of the wall were reinforced with bricks and stones. The sections of the wall that tourists visit today are mostly from the Ming dynasty. The wall at that time started from Linyao in Gansu Province and ended in Liaoning Province. The length of the wall reached more than 5,000 kilometers or 10,000 li (li is a unit of length in China, which is approximately equal to 0.5 kilometers). The wall has since become known as the “Great Wall of Ten Thousand Li” (Wan Li Chang Cheng).

The length of the great wall:

There are different data on the length of the Great Wall. This is due to the history of China, when for more than 20 dynasties and states emperors and rulers built their own walls in different places. According to historical documents, there are three sections with a length of more than 10,000 li (5,000 km). The first site was built during the reign of Emperor Shi Huangdi. It starts from Lintao in the west and ends at Liaodong in the east.

The second site, built during the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220), starts from today’s Xinjiang and ends at Liaodong. The site contains internal and external walls with towers. The length of this section is more than 20,000 li (10,000 km).

The third site was built during the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644). It runs from the Jiayuguan Pass to Gansu in the west and ends at the Yalu River in the east. If you add up the length of all the sites built under different dynasties, the length will be about 100,000 li (50000 km). The ruins of these walls are scattered across 16 provinces, cities and autonomous regions of China. In Inner Mongolia, the length of the Great Wall rhiuns is 30,000 li (15,000 km).

Most of the walls built in the early periods are now destroyed. Only the site built during the Ming Dynasty is relatively well preserved. So when we talk about the Great Wall, we mean the Great Wall of the Ming dynasty, whose length is 12,000 li (6000 km). Double and triple walls were also built. And taking into account hinges and branches, the length of the wall can increase even more.

The length of a wall can be measured not only in kilometers, but also in human lives. The Great Wall is said to be the longest cemetery in the world.

Now sections of the wall - Badaling, Simathai, Mutianyu and Jiayuguan have become popular among tourists. Badaling is a typical stretch of the Great Wall, the most famous place in China and is always filled with visitors coming from all over the world.