Onde Fica O The Great Wall?
The Great Wall of China was built over centuries by China’s emperors to protect their territory. Today, it stretches for thousands of miles along China’s historic northern border.
Know Before You Go
Construction of the wall began in the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE) under the First Emperor Shi Huangdi (r. 221-210 BCE) and continued over hundreds of years throughout many different dynasties. The Great Wall in the present day is almost completely the work of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1664 CE) who added the distinctive watchtowers and expanded the length and width of the wall. The now-famous national monument fell into decay following the Ming Dynasty, when the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912 CE) took power and expanded the border of China northwards, making the wall obsolete. Restoration and preservation efforts only seriously began in the 1980's CE, and the wall was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 CE.
The Ming wall extended from the Yalu River in Liaoning Province to the eastern bank of the Taolai River in Gansu Province, and winded its way from east to west through today’s Liaoning, Hebei, Tianjin, Beijing, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Ningxia and Gansu.
The construction and maintenance of the Great wall continued for nearly all the Chinese feudal dynasties. The smaller and less powerful dynasties of fractured post-Han-Dynasty China (North Wei, North Qi, East Wei, and North Zhou) all spent a lot on the Great Wall.
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The Sui Dynasty (581–618) saw extensive rebuilding of the Great Wall, while the following Tang Dynasty (618–907), the culmination of China's feudal age, didn't do any work on the Great wall owing to its superior power and advantage over its northern nomad neighbors.
The triumphant Communists didn’t initially have much interest in the Wall, with Mao Zedong encouraging farmers living nearby to use it as a source of free building materials. In the mid 1950s, however, it was decided that the Great Wall at Badaling should be the site of the first major Wall restoration since the Ming Dynasty. Then, and again in 1987, two restoration projects have resurrected over 8km of wall and more than 20 watchtowers. Revitalized as a patriotic exemplar of the People’s Republic of China, hundreds of foreign heads of state including Nixon, Thatcher, Gorbachev and Obama have smiled for the cameras on its battlements, and hundreds of millions of tourists, both Chinese and foreign, have huffed and puffed up its steep steps.
Timeline
There are many modern misconceptions concerning the Great Wall of China. The best known and most often repeated is that it is the only human-made structure on earth that can be seen from space; this is not true. The origin of this claim is the English essayist Sir Henry Norman, who wrote in 1895 CE that the wall was "the only work of human hands on the globe visible from the moon." His observation was based on the fact that people on earth could see craters and canals on the moon, and so someone on the moon would be able to see something as long and massive as the Great Wall on earth. Many people seem to believe that the claim the wall can be seen from the moon is based on first-hand accounts of astronauts or the work of scientists and astronomers, but it is actually the creation of a man who wrote when space travel was not even possible. Modern day scholars and scientists, as well as those who have traveled to the moon, have debunked this claim repeatedly.
In the mid-17th century, the Manchus from central and southern Manchuria broke through the Great Wall and encroached on Beijing, eventually forcing the fall of the Ming Dynasty and beginning of the Qing Dynasty.
The Great Wall in modern times
When Liu-Bang defeated Xiang-Yu in 202 BCE at the Battle of Gaixia, he became the First Emperor of the Han Dynasty (202 BCE-220 CE) and continued construction of the wall as a means of defense. He was also the first emperor to use the wall as a means of regulating trade north along what would eventually become known as the Silk Routes (better known as The Silk Road) which the later Han Dynasty emperor Wu Ti (r. 141-87 BCE) expanded and opened for trade between China and Europe in 130 BCE.
“The Great Wall of China,” In Our Time: BBC radio host Melvyn Bragg discusses the Great Wall of China with Chinese historians in this episode of In Our Time. The scholars vividly describe the differences among the many sections of the Great Wall and talk in depth about its origins.
The Great Wall also has many fascinating true stories and interesting things. If you want to hear more while standing at the scene of the story, just tell us your interests and requirements and we will tailor-made a Great Wall tour for you.
Go Further
Great Wall Website: This collection of essays lays out the history of the many long walls that comprise the Great Wall, analyzes the popular folktale of Meng Jiangnu, and answers commonly asked questions about the wall (such as, Is it visible from the moon? No.). Be sure to check out the Travel Guide section, which details the various sites and best times to visit the wall.
Criterion (vi): The Great Wall has an incomparable symbolic significance in the history of China. Its purpose was to protect China from outside aggression, but also to preserve its culture from the customs of foreign barbarians. Because its construction implied suffering, it is one of the essential references in Chinese literature, being found in works like the "Soldier's Ballad" of Tch'en Lin (c. 200 A.D.) or the poems of Tu Fu (712-770) and the popular novels of the Ming period.
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People of the Ming dynasty layered stone and brick over packed earth, building walls 20 feet wide at the base and nearly 30 feet high that twist along the steep mountain ridges north of Beijing. Surrounded by misty green hills with watchtowers that disappear into low-hanging clouds, the wall is a place for reflection—the sense of history and the craftsmanship required to build it permeate the ancient stones.
Where does the Great Wall of China start and end?
Criterion (ii): During the Chunqiu period, the Chinese imposed their models of construction and organization of space in building the defence works along the northern frontier. The spread of Sinicism was accentuated by the population transfers necessitated by the Great Wall.
It's generally believed that the first parts of the Great Wall were built during the Spring and Autumn Period, when the eastern and central region of what is now China consisted of many small states or princedoms.
The Great Wall of China's history began in the Spring and Autumn Period (770–476 BC), was first completed in the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BC), and was last rebuilt as a defense in the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). It protected China's north from invasion for all but two dynasties that were invader-led: Yuan (1279–1368) and Qing (1644–1912).
What is the Great Wall?
"The Great Wall impresses everyone who sees it for the first time, from children to adults, from the general tourists to scholars,” says Henry Ng, the manager of the World Monuments Fund’s China projects. “The vastness of the structure helps children grasp the great achievements in human history—from the Great Wall to the great pyramids—and can help inspire them to learn more about human achievements over the millennia.”
As it turned out, the Liaoning Wall and the Great Wall were equally useless in repelling invasion. Manchu invasions from the north began in c. 1600 CE and continued until 1644 CE when the Great Wall was opened to the invaders. China was again in turmoil at this time as a rebellion had been mounted against the Ming Dynasty. The Ming general Wu Sangui (l.1612-1678 CE), who had declared himself emperor, opened the Great Wall to the Manchus in a deal whereby they would help him defeat the rebels. Instead, the Manchus seized power, expelled the Ming Dynasty, and established the Qing Dynasty. The victory of the Manchus over the Ming meant that the border of China was now some distance north of the Great Wall, and since it was no longer of any use in defense, it was neglected and fell into ruin until the rise of the Republic of China in 1912 CE, when it was found useful in controlling immigration and emigration.
Between the 18th and 20th centuries, the Great Wall emerged as the most common emblem of China for the Western world, and a symbol both physical—as a manifestation of Chinese strength—and a psychological representation of the barrier maintained by the Chinese state to repel foreign influences and exert control over its citizens.