ABOUT GREAT WALL

What/where is the Great Wall?
The Great Wall of China is the largest defense construction on earth, and the subject of the most mythology. It’s built in the northern part of China in ancient times to prevent the Han Chinese from attacking by nomads like the Huns and Mogolians. The Great Wall stretches from Shanhaiguan in the east to Jiayuguan in the western Gobi desert. The Great Wall does not work as a defense system anymore, and is becoming a popular travellers site now. It was listed as World Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in 1987.

When was the Great Wall built?
The Great Wall was not built in a time, it’s the efforts of thousands of Chinese in many dynasties. These walls stretch over many thousands of miles in total, and stand in various stages of disrepair or restoration.
The origin of the wall can date back to 7th century BC when there were many ducal states fighting against each other. Each ducal states or kingdoms built their own city walls to protect themsevels.

In 221 BC, the King of Qin Kingdom conquered the other states and unified the whole country as Qin Empire, and the King became Emperor Qinshihuang (First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty). Emperor Qinshihuang ordered to link all city walls in different palces up, and the Qin Dynasty Great Wall came into being. Little of the Qing Dynasty wall remains.

Later dynasties sometimes restored and rebuilt along a line established by their predecessors. The Han Dyansty (206 BC-220 AD) was the second climax to repair the wall since it’s threatened by the Huns in the north at that time. The wall was reconstructed and maintained through the dynasty for almost 400 years. The later Sui, Nothern and Jin dynasties all repaired, restored or expanded sections of the wall to defend themselves.

The Great Wall was revived again during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) following the collapse of Mongolian Yuan Dynasty. The Ming adopted a new strategy to keep Mongolians out by constructing walls along the northern border of China. The Ming construction was stronger and more elaborate due to the use of stone and bricks instead of rammed earth. Sections near the Ming capital of Beijing were especially strong.
When the Ming was defeated by Manchurian in 1644, the Great Wall lost its function as defense project as the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) controled both the outside and inside of the wall. Most of sections of the Great Wall we see today were from the Ming Dynasty.

How long is the Great Wall?
No one knows the exact length of Great Wall of China as it’s a discontinuous network of wall segments built by different dynasties. The Chinese call it “Ten-Thousand-Li-Wall” (Wan Li Chang Cheng).

It is said that the Qin Great Wall had a total length of more than 5000 kilometres and the Han Great Wall stretched more than 7000 kilometres, which is the longest ever. Little of the Qin and Han walls remains as the main building material were rammed earth. The Ming Great Wall meandered through 6000 kilometres from east to west with the construction of bricks and stone.

How to build the Great Wall? What’s the building material? What’s the construction of the Great Wall?
The Great Wall was made by hands only without any modern machines. Most of the artisans were criminals who were punished by the law. The wall stretches from east to west by mountains, valleys, rivers and deserts, thus the building material were from the local area. Rammed earth, sands, willow trees, stones and bricks were all used in different sections of the wall. The earlier Qin and Han walls were small and low, and the Ming Great Wall were much higer and stronger than before. Watch towers, beacon towers, passes, garisson towns, fortresses and barrier wall combined a effective defense system.

What’s the Great Wall like in ancient times?
Soldiers were stationing on the wall to keep watching the enemy outside of the wall. When the enemy were approaching, they would deliver the message by beacon towers with smoking at daytime and lighting at night. Most of farmers near the present-day wall are decendants of those wall-watchers.

Which sections of the Great Wall can the travellers visit nowadays?
Many sections of the wall were restored in 1980s and travellers can visit these more easily.
Beijing: Sightseeing at Badaling, Juyongguan and Mutianyu sections; Hiking at Jinshanling, Simatai, Gubeikou, Mutianyu and Jiankou sections.
Tianjin: Sightseeing and hiking at Huangyaguan section
Shanghaiguan in the eastern end: Sightseeing and hiking at Shanghaiguan section
Gobi desert in the western end: Sightseeing and hiking at Jiayuguan section

Is there anyone who walked the whole Great Wall?
Three Chinese walked the whole Great Wall between May 1984 and September 1985. They started the walking at Shanghaiguan in the east and competed at Jiayuguan in the west which is the Ming Great Wall. The adventure took 508 days on the Great Wall. Dong Yaohui, one of the three poineers, is now the vice-presiden of China Great Wall Society and a well-known Great Wall Expert.

In 1987 Englishman William Lindesay traveled 2,470 km alone along the route of the Ming Dynasty Great Wall between Jiayuguan and Shanhaiguan, thus became the first foreigner who complete the who Great Wall. The experience led him to stay in China and carry out systematic and scholarly research of the wall. In 2001 Lindesay founded “International Friends of the Great Wall” (www.friendsofgreatwall.org) as a society in Hong Kong in order to “assist China’s cultural-relics protection authorities in the task of preserving the authenticity of the Great Wall.” His works includes Alone on the Great Wall and The Great Wall Revisited: From the Jade Gate to Old Dragon’s Head.

Is Great Wall visible from the moon?
Popular beliefs ranging from Ripley’s Believe It or Not!’s cartoons from 1930s, which claimed that the Great Wall is "the mightiest work of man, the only one that would be visible to the human eye from the moon," to Richard Halliburton’s 1938 book Second Book of Marvels which makes a similar claim, have persisted, assuming urban legend status, and sometimes even appearing in school textbooks.

The Great Wall is a maximum 9 meter wide and is about the same color as the soil surrounding it. Based on the optics of resolving power (distance versus the width of the iris: a few millimetres for the human eye, metres for large telescopes) only an object of reasonable contrast to its surroundings 70 miles or more in diameter would be visible to the unaided eye from the moon, whose average distance from Earth is 384,393 km. The apparent width of the Great Wall from the moon is the same as that of a human hair viewed from 2 miles away. Unsurprisingly, no lunar astronaut has ever claimed seeing the Great Wall from the moon.