5 Fun Facts about the Great Wall of China!
5 Fun Facts about the Great Wall of China ⛰️⚒️
We know it’s long, but how much do you know about the Great Wall of China?
The Great Wall is more than 13,000 miles long! It's clearly the longest wall in the world, but to put that in perspective, the circumference of the Earth is only 24,900 miles. This means that if the Great Wall was stretched into a straight line, it would reach more than half-way around the world! No wonder it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the New Seven Wonders of the World!
The Great Wall was built over the span of more than 2,000 years! The earliest parts were built in 700 BC, with the most recent and famous sections built during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The sections that were built during the Ming Dynasty average 33 feet tall and 15 feet wide!
It's more than a wall! It was originally built to protect China from invasions from the north. As such, the wall is dotted with watchtowers and fortresses, which had 3 stories used for communication (such as lighting fires to warn their fellow soldiers how many enemy soldiers were spotted), storage, and to house troops. In fact, there are more than 25,000 watchtowers along the wall, and during the Ming Dynasty, it was estimated that 1 million soldiers were stationed on the Wall.
Very versatile! The materials used to build the wall varied depending on what was nearby. Some parts were made using wood, bricks (almost 4 billion of them!), and stones, while other parts were made of mud and even sticky rice mortar. It's believed that millions of soldiers, peasants, and prisoners worked to build the wall, and that potentially hundreds of thousands of people died during its construction.
Although it's been widely quoted as being the only man-made structure visible from outer space, that's actually not true. Because the wall is relatively narrow, it's not visible with the naked eye. However, there are many other man-made structures that are visible from outer space, including city lights!
Here’s another great resource about the history of the wall (with pictures!):