A view of the Great Wall at Beijing (Peking) as it was in 1906

The Great Wall of China is a 5,500 mile long  series of fortifications across most of Northern China.  It is recognized today as one of the Great Wonders of the world and a Unesco world heritage site.

The great wall was built by the first Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang in the 5th century B.C. to keep northern barbarians from invading China. Over the centuries the wall was extended and strengthened, with much of its current layout and stone walls being built under the Ming Dynasty. Active construction took place, incredibly, until the 17th century.

The great wall today looks very different than when it was originally built. When the first Great Wall was constructed, the fortifications were mainly of packed earth because masonry had not been extensively developed yet. Succeeding emperors rebuilt and improved the wall over the centuries, adding stone ramparts and towers,  finally giving it the current appearance which is familiar from tourist brochures and documentaries today. However the neatly constructed stone wall with its towers and middle section for pedestrians is not representative of the entire wall: the best constructed and best preserved sections of the wall are near Beijing, since that was the most important area that needed protection. Other sections of the wall were never as well constructed relying instead on packed earth ramparts and some sections have fallen down altogether. In many areas bricks have been scavenged for building materials while in other parts sections of the Great Wall have been destroyed to make room for development including road construction. Therefore the Great Wall is no longer an unbroken series of fortifications.

Here are some pictures of the Great Wall as it was in 1906:

Photograph of the Great Wall and a large tower near Peking

The photograph above is of the Great Wall and one its many towers on the edge of Peking. Note how the massive structure dwarfs the horse cart and driver at its base. The wall must have presented an awesome and frightening sight to any barbarian army from the wilds of Mongolia.

The Hata-man Gate

The picture above is of one of the main gates of the Great Wall. Through this gate passed throngs of people and the assorted merchandise and cattle that the imperial city of Peking needed. Ellen Mary Hayes Peck, western traveler to China in 1906 described what she saw:

The usual throng of dealers and of diverse nationalities are represented, resulting in a great deal of bustle and activity, a great deal of noise and dirt. The crowds around some of the gateways included rows of vehicles and sometimes a group of camels; but the most individual of all conveyances is the Peking cart; indeed, I have never seen any inanimate object that wore so individual an air, and when viewed in large numbers, their appearance is most peculiar. This cart is two-wheeled, with a roof, and with sides and back enclosed. One horse is used. In the front opening sits the driver, some one usually at his side, while behind him, far in the back, may be seen the faces of the occupants peering out. Many of the carts used by the ordinary people have no windows or openings on the side; others have windows covered with a kind of netting which admits some air.

A Tower of the Great Wall

In this picture can be seen one of the many hundreds of towers that served as strong points and bastions of the Great Wall. The towers acted as garrisons and defensive positions for the troops guarding the tower. In this picture, taken in 1906 it appears that some of the masonry has fallen down: even the Wall cannot keep out time.

Useful Links About the Great Wall:

• Great Wall Facts – provides a lot of interesting and less well known information about the Great Wall

• The Great Wall: China Against the World

• Great Wall of China — an interesting site written from a Chinese perspective. It debunks several myths including the fact that the wall is actually not a continuous line, and that the wall was never called the Great Wall of China by contemporary Chinese, but that the term was coined by western travelers and then eventually adopted by Chinese nationalists.