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The Great Wall of China is a series of stone and earthen fortifications in China, built, rebuilt, and maintained between the 5th century B. C. and the 16th century A. D. to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire. The most famous is the wall built by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, of which little remains, and which was much farther than the current wall, which was built during the Ming Dynasty.

The Great Wall stretches over approximately 6,700 km from Shanhaiguan in the east to Lop Nur in the west. At its peak, the Ming wall was guarded by more than one million men. It has been estimated that somewhere in the range of 2 to 3 million Chinese died as part of the centuries-long project of building the wall. The height of the wall is generally from 6 to 9 meters and at intervals of some 180 meters are towers about 12 meters high. Its base is from 4 to 7 meters thick and its summit 3.5 meters wide. The wall is carried over valleys and mountains, and in places is over 1200 meters above sea level.

The Great Wall at Badaling, 16th c.

North of Peking.

Xian city wall of the old Tang imperial city, 1370–1378. Qian (Xian). Xian.

The Panmen Water Gates as seen from outside the city walls, 1333–1370.

Suzhou. Suzhou, Jiangsu Province.

Before the wall was built by using bricks, it was created by earth, stones and wood. During the Ming Dynasty bricks were heavily used in many areas of the wall, as well as materials such as tiles, lime, and stone. Bricks were easier to work with than earth and stone as their small size and light weight made them convenient to carry and augmented construction speed. Consequently, stones cut in rectangular shapes were used for the foundation, inner and outer brims, and gateways of the wall.

Among the later representatives of the t’ai are the towers of the Great Wall, which are built of stone with arched doors and windows – the Chinese seem always to have employed the arch in stone architecture – the storied buildings dominating the gateways and angles of the city walls, often used to store arms; and the observatory of Peking, which is also a square tower mounted upon the city wall. When the tower is planned out as an oblong, broader than it is deep, it is technically called a lou.

The Xi’an City Wall is not only the most complete city wall that has survived in China, but it’s also one of the largest and most complete ancient military systems of defense in the world. The construction of the City Wall of Xi’an was initiated by Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1398). The circumference of the city wall is 14 km long. The military defense facilities here including the city wall, city moat, drawbridges, watchtowers, corner towers, parapet walls and gate towers once made up a complete city defense system. The wall now stands 12 meters tall, 12–14 meters wide at the top and 15–18 meters thick at the bottom. Every 120 meters, there is a rampart which extends out from the main wall. On the city wall there is a range of outward parapets interrupted by as many as 5984 crenels, and there are altogether protruding ramparts. On each of the four corners of the city wall there is a watchtower. The city wall is surrounded by a moat, which is 18 meters wide and 6 meters deep.

The Great Wall at Badaling, 16th c.

Badaling. North of Peking.

Arrow Tower (Jian Lou), Dongbianmen, Ming city walls. It used to be southeast tower of the four corner towers of the city walls, 1419–1435. Peking.

Panmen City Gate was first built during the Wu Kingdom of Spring and Autumn Period (770–476 B. C.) and it is the only well preserved water-and-land city gate in the world now. The current gate was reconstructed in 1351. It consists of water and land gates, the city gate tower and city walls at both sides. Panmen Gate is part of the ancient city wall built in 514 B. C. that surrounded and protected Suzhou.

The city wall of Peking was a fortification built around 1435. The architect Kuei Xiang constructed nine gates and five fortresses, a design which symbolized the Emperor’s divinity of both the Nine and the Five. It was 23.5 km long. The wall was 15m high, 20m thick at ground level, and 12m thick at the top. It had an extensive fortification system, consisting of the Palace city, the Imperial city, the inner city and the outer city. Specifically, it included many gate towers, gates, archways, watchtowers, barbicans, barbican towers, barbican gates, barbican archways, sluice gates, sluice gate towers, enemy sighting towers, corner guard towers and moat. It had the most extensive defense system in Imperial China. The terre-plein was well and smoothely paved, and he is defended by a crenellated parapet. The outer faces of the walls are strengthened by square buttresses built out at intervals of 60 meters, and on the summits of these stand the guard houses for the troops on duty.

The massive 30-meter-high Dongbianmen Tower is a 568-year-old arrow castle dating from 1436. It is the largest and oldest corner tower along a city wall in China. With its 144 arrow holes helping to protect the city, it also looked over the link with the Grand Canal. It is located at the southeastern corner of the outer city walls. There was also a watchtower was built during the Qianlong era (1735–1796), with two levels of arrow windows, four windows per level on the northern side, and two windows per level each on the eastern and western sides.

Map of Peking, 1917.

The Gate of Supreme Harmony, 15th c.

Forbidden City, Peking.

Xu Yang, Bird’s eye View of the Capital, 1767.

Hanging scroll, colour on silk, 255 × 233.8 cm.

Palace Museum, Peking.

The Throne hall, 1420.

Imperial Palace (Forbidden City). Peking.