When talking about fortifications then the Great Wall of China has to rank amongst the most famous. Built over two millennia and stretching over 13,000 miles (allowing for all the secondary sections) the greatest success of the wall is as a tourist attraction.
Visiting The Great Wall
Due to it’s vast size it is extremely unlikely you’ll see the wall in its entirety and most visits are day trips from Beijing. There are two sections within a couple of hours drive of Beijing – Muitanyu and Baddaling. The good news is that they are a couple of hours drive and are largely restored. The bad news is that they are incredibly busy.
If you have more time then driving a bit further from Beijing (I’m not including the sections of the wall in the far west as they are probably inaccessible to foreigners whilst the Uighur ‘re-education’ continues ….) opens up several other options. There is a fantastic guide to these here on China Highlights and on our next visit we’d certainly try and see either the Simatai section for night photography or the Jinshanling section for photography without crowds.
There are plenty of tours to the wall from Beijing and I’d strongly recommend a private tour so you can go at your own pace and time and maybe avoid the worst of the crowds. All the sites mentioned above have plenty of parking facilities, restaurants near those parking areas and also hotel options. Some are almost like theme parks to be honest.
When visiting you have the option of climbing to the wall yourself or taking a cable car. For the minimal cost I’d take the car as there is still plenty of climbing and walking on the wall itself! There is also a heavily restored gateway fortress to visit at Juyongguan, information here.
My Experience
Our visit was whilst staying in Beijing, just sightseeing. There are so many sites that the wall was just one of those although admittedly a highlight! Full details of our stay are on my travel blog here. We visited the Baddaling section as I didn’t know better at the time.
The drive was easy and the car park huge – this area of the wall is a very popular day trip and it was certainly one of the busiest places we visited during our stay. We allowed a couple of hours for this on our itinerary but we should have allowed more so we could have walked further away from the crowds.
Walking this section of wall was quite an eye opener. The sections were frequently so steep that you had to actually climb with your hands rather than just walk and the route of the wall didn’t seem to follow any strategic sense. As a boundary and a statement it was fantastic – snaking for as far as the eye could see in either direction. The terrain we saw would have been atrocious for the nomadic cavalry it was designed to keep out so I guess it would just funnel them towards the heavily defended valleys and passes.
The Great Wall Photo Gallery
As these photos were taken in the dim and distant past of 2009 they were not taken in RAW so these are pretty much unedited jpgs. I’d like to think my own skill in photography has moved on since then too so these may not be ideal pictures. Sorry!
History
The history of the Great Wall of China began when fortifications built by various states during the Spring and Autumn (771–476 BC) and Warring States periods (475–221 BC) were connected by the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, to protect his newly founded Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) against incursions by nomads from Inner Asia. The walls were built of rammed earth, constructed using forced labour, and by 212 BC ran from Gansu to the coast of southern Manchuria.
Later dynasties adopted different policies towards northern frontier defense. The Han (202 BC – 220 AD), the Northern Qi (550–574), the Jurchen Jin (1115-1234), and particularly the Ming (1369–1644) were among those that rebuilt, re-manned, and expanded the Walls, although they rarely followed Qin’s routes. The Han extended the fortifications furthest to the west, the Qi built about 1,600 kilometres (990 mi) of new walls, while the Sui mobilised over a million men in their wall-building efforts. Conversely, the Tang (618–907), the Song (960–1279), the Yuan (1271–1368), and the Qing (1644–1911) mostly did not build frontier walls, instead opting for other solutions to the Inner Asian threat like military campaigning and diplomacy.
Although a useful deterrent against raids, at several points throughout its history the Great Wall failed to stop enemies, including in 1644 when the Manchu Qing marched through the gates of Shanhai Pass and replaced the most ardent of the wall-building dynasties, the Ming, as rulers of China.
The Great Wall of China visible today largely dates from the Ming dynasty, as they rebuilt much of the wall in stone and brick, often extending its line through challenging terrain. Some sections remain in relatively good condition or have been renovated, while others have been damaged or destroyed for ideological reasons, deconstructed for their building materials, or lost due to the ravages of time. For long an object of fascination for foreigners, the wall is now a revered national symbol and a popular tourist destination.
References
There fabulous maps of the Great Wall here on China TravelGuide’s website.
China Highlights has a great guide to the different sections of the wall to visit here.
There a nice guide for more leisurely Wall visits here.
The history above is copied from the Wikipedia site here.