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Home - China Travel Guide - Beijing Travel Guide - The Great Wall

The Great Wall of China is so spectacular that like the colossus at Rhodes and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, it can be said to be one of the greatest wonders of the world. This is one of the largest manmade structures ever constructed and stretches across the mountains of Northern China surrounding the north and northwest sides of Beijing. The wall itself consists of masonry, rocks and packed earth.

The original building of the wall was begun during the Spring and Autumn period (770-476 BC) and continued into the Warring States period (475-221 BC) of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. Wall were built at that time by ducal states to defend territory.

The Ming Dynasty section of the Great Wall starts in the east at Shanhai Pass, near Qinhuangdao, in the Hebei Province, next to the Bohai Gulf. This impressive construct spanned 9 provinces and 100 counties, but has, unfortunately not been preserved and the last 500 km have deteriorated into an unrecognizable state. Today, this section of the wall ends in the west at Jiayu Pass, located in northwest Gansu Province at the limit of the Gobi Desert and the oases of the Silk Road. This historic site greeted travelers at the end of the silk road, and even though the Wall ends here, it's watchtowers continue, using smoke signals to warn of possible invasion.

Local villages and farms have used the great wall as a source of building materials over the last few centuries and as aerial photographs have shown, some sections of the great wall has only the top battlements still remaining, with the center of the wall being filled with sand and slit. Reconstruction and restoration of this amazing structure is, unfortunately, slow and problematic, as the same brutal conditions which originally made the Great Wall a triumph of engineering and determined planning are faced today.

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