The Great Wall

     The Great Wall of China, one of the greatest wonders of the world, stretches approximately 6,700 kilometers from east to west in China, just like a gigantic dragon winding up and down across deserts, grasslands, mountains and plateaus. It is one of the largest man-made structures ever constructed and a symbol of Chinese civilization, enlisted in the World Heritage by UNESCO in 1987.       The Great Wall was an ancient gigantic defensive project. 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. The Wall was built at that time by ducal states to defend territory. In the Qin Dynasty (221BC-206BC), Qinshihuang, the first emperor of Qin Dynasty unified the whole nation and began to build the Great Wall and connected different walls which built by different ducal states to protect China's borders from the intrusion of the northern nomadic tribes. There are three large-scale constructions on the wall in Chinese history. Among them, the wall built in Ming Dynasty had the best quality.
      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 construction 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. Sections of the wall in Beijing were will preserved and repaired for visitors home and abroad to see the Chinese ancient civilization.