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Great Wall of China

✨ The stone dragon

The Great Wall of China is not a single wall built at one time. It is a vast network of fortifications constructed, repaired, and extended by different Chinese states and dynasties over many centuries. Some of the earliest defensive walls appeared as early as the 7th century BCE, while major construction took place under the Qin, Han, and Ming dynasties.

The Qin emperor Qin Shi Huang connected and reinforced earlier walls in the 3rd century BCE, although much of what survives today dates from the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). The system included walls, watchtowers, gates, forts, trenches, and natural barriers such as mountains and rivers.

The wall was mainly designed to control movement, protect strategic areas, and help defend the northern frontier rather than to form an impenetrable barrier. Soldiers could use towers to observe the surroundings and communicate over long distances with signals.

Construction methods varied according to the local environment: builders used rammed earth and packed soil in some regions, while in other areas they employed bricks and stone. The total length of all known sections and related defensive structures is estimated at more than 20,000 kilometres. The Great Wall is therefore best understood as a changing military landscape rather than one continuous monument. It was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1987.

💡 Did you know?

Did you know that the Great Wall is so long that you could almost go halfway around the world with it? It measures over 21,000 kilometers in total! Contrary to what is often imagined, it is not a single continuous wall, but a set of several walls built, destroyed, and linked at different times in China's history.

Internet before its time: to send messages quickly from one end of the wall to the other, soldiers used smoke signals by day and fires by night from high watchtowers. This allowed the entire empire to be warned of an attack in just a few hours. it was like a very fast ancestor of the Internet for the military!

Visible from space? It is often said that the Great Wall can be seen from the Moon with the naked eye, but astronauts have confirmed this is a legend: it's too narrow! However, from an airplane or from very low in space, you can admire this stone ribbon perfectly following all the mountain ridges like a magic thread.