Great Wall Of China

Today I will help you discover some facts about the Great Wall of China. I will include information of the Great Wall Controversy, some interesting facts and when and why it was built.

It took four dynasties and 2000 years to build the Great Wall of China. The Qin erected the first major structure around 214BC and this was continued by the Han, the Jin and finally the Ming who ruled until the mid-17th century. The purpose of the wall was to protect the Middle Kingdom from northern invaders.




Great Wall of China: Length and the Space Controversy


The Great Wall of China stretches 8,800 km along the southern border of Mongolia. Sections are long buried by sandstorms were discovered in 2009, adding a further 290km. It’s the world’s largest military structure but with no clear photographic record, and so whether it can be seen from space continues to be unknown. Even the first Chinese astronaut in 2003 failed to identify the wall!

The highest point of the Wall is at Heita Mountain (1534 metres), the lowest is sea level at Laolongtou. The largest tower is the Zhenbeitai in the Shaanxi province.




So... Why was the Great Wall built?

The Great Wall of China is a Chinese construction, built from 3rd century BC until the beginning of the 17th century, in order to protect the various dynasties from raids by Mongol, Turkic, and other nomad tribes coming from areas in Mongolia and Manchuria.

The Wall was specifically to protect China from the invasion of the Xiongnu people from Mongolia. The Xiongnu tribe was China's main enemy at that time, and so the chinese built the Great Wall to prevent them from entering- and least favorably to the Chinese- conquering China.

Also, the Wall was erected to attack the Xiongnu people by shooting arrows and firing cannonballs at them from atop the Wall, which was cleverly designed with small holes in the walls for both defense and attack at the same time. Although the building of the architectural wonder demanded that many lives be sacrificed, it was still worth it in the end, as the Mongolians might have killed many more Chinese while inside China.

The Great Wall has also contributed in tourism in the later years too, although that was not the main reason for building it.