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GREAT WALL OF CHINA

The Great Wall of China, also known in China as the Great Wall of 10,000 Li, is an ancient Chinese fortification built from the end of the 14th century until the beginning of the 16th century, during the Ming Dynasty, in order to protect China against the Mongols.

The Great Wall of China was preceded by several walls built since the 3rd century BC against the raids of nomadic tribes coming from modern day Mongolia and Manchuria.

The Wall stretches over a formidable 6,700 km, from Shanhai Pass on the Bohai Gulf in the east, at the limit between China proper and Manchuria, to Jiayu Pass in western Gansu province in the west, at the limit of the Gobi Desert and the oases of the Silk Road.

HISTORY

The first major wall was built during the reign of The First Emperor, the main emperor of the short-lived Qin dynasty. This wall was not constructed as a single endeavor, but rather was created by the joining of several regional walls built by the Warring States. It was located much more north than the current Great Wall, and very little remains of it. A defensive wall on the northern border was built and maintained by several dynasties at different times along Chinese history.

The Great Wall that can still be seen today was built during the Ming Dynasty, on a much larger scale and with longer lasting materials (solid stone used for the sides and the top of the Wall) than any wall that had been built before. The primary purpose of the wall was not to keep out people, who could scale the wall, but to insure that semi-nomadic people on the outside of the wall could not cross with their horses or return easily with stolen property.

There have been four major walls:

208 BC (the Qin Dynasty)
1st century BC (the Han Dynasty)
1138 - 1198 (the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period)
1368-1620 (from Hongwu Emperor until Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty)

The Ming Dynasty Great Wall starts on the eastern end at Shanhai Pass, near Qinhuangdao, in Hebei Province, next to Bohai Gulf. Spanning nine provinces and 100 counties, it ends on the western end at Jiayu Pass located in northwest Gansu Province. Jiayu Pass was intended to greet travelers along the Silk Road. Even though

The Great Wall ends at Jiayu Pass, there are watchtowers extending beyond Jiayu Pass along the Silk Road. These towers communicated by smoke to signal invasion.

The Manchus crossed the Wall by convincing a crucial general Wu Sangui to open the gates of Shahai Pass and allow the Manchus to cross. Legend has it that they took three days for the Manchu armies to pass. After they conquered China, the Wall was of no strategic value as the people who the Wall was intended to keep out were ruling the country (becoming the Qing Dynasty).

Watchtower near Beijing, Great Wall of China

Storehouse and Barracks near Beijing, Great Wall of China

Watchtower interior, Great Wall of China

The government ordered people to work on the wall, and workers were under constant danger of being attacked by brigands. Because many people died while building the wall, it is often called the "longest cemetery on Earth".

MAJOR GATES

Significant passes include: Shanhai Pass, Juyong Pass, and Ni醤gzi Pass

CONDITION

While some portions near tourist centers have been preserved and even reconstructed, in most locations the Wall is in disrepair, serving as a playground for some villages and a source of stones to rebuild houses and roads. Sections of the Wall are also prone to graffiti. Parts have been bulldozed because the Wall is in the way of construction projects.

The China Great Wall Society works to preserve the Wall. Through June 2003, the Chinese government still had no laws written to protect the Wall nationwide. However, Beijing has enacted local legislation which would prohibit visits to the "wild Great Wall" or parts not open to the public; this has been in force since August 2003.

WATCHTOWERS AND BARRACKS

The wall is interrupted by defensive fighting stations, to which wall defenders may retreat if overwhelmed. Each tower has unique and restricted stairways and entries to confuse attackers.

Barracks and administrative centers are located at larger intervals.

SPECIALIZED DEFENSE WEAPONS

In addition to the usual miltary weapons of the period, specialized wall defense weapons were used. Reproductions of these weapons are displayed at the wall.

MATERIALS

The materials used are those available near the site of construction. Near Beijing the wall is constructed from quarried limestone blocks. In other locations it may be quarried granite or fired brick. Where such materials are used two finished walls are erected with earth and rubble fill placed in between with a final paving to form a single unit. In the extreme western desert locations where good materials are scarce the wall was constructed from dirt rammed between rough wood tied together with woven mats.

RECOGNITION

The Wall is sometimes included in lists of the "Seven Wonders of the Modern World," but was of course not one of the classical Seven Wonders of the World recognized by the ancient Greeks. The Wall was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.

In 1938, Richard Halliburton's Second Book of Marvels stated that the Great Wall is the only man-made object that can be seen from the moon. This statement has persisted, assuming urban legend status and sometimes entering textbooks. If taken to mean that the Great Wall can be seen with the unaided eye from the distance of the moon, it is untrue.

However, from low earth orbit, about a thousand times nearer than the moon, it may be visible under favorable conditions. The Great Wall is only a few meters wide and is comparable to many other structures, such as highways and airport runways. Astronauts give varying reports. This variation is not surprising; amateur astronomers know that features on the moon that are dramatically visible at times can be undetectable on others, due to changes in lighting direction.

One shuttle astronaut reported that "we can see things as small as airport runways [but] the Great Wall is almost invisible from only 180 miles (290 km) up."

Astronaut William Pogue thought he had seen it from Skylab but discovered he was actually viewing the Grand Canal near Peking. He did succeed in spotting the Great Wall with binoculars but stated that "it wasn't visible to the unaided eye." Recently, Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei said he couldn't see it at all. An Apollo astronaut reported that no human structures at all were visible at a distance of a few thousand miles.

Meanwhile, veteran U.S. astronaut Gene Cernan has stated: "At Earth orbit of 160 km to 320 km high, the Great Wall of China is indeed visible to the naked eye." Regardless of how visible the Great Wall is when viewed by the unaided eye from low earth orbit, the notion that the Great Wall has a unique and superlative visibility, exceeding that of other great public works, is a myth.

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