The Great Wall of China is the longest wall in the world, stretching over 5500 kilometers. It was built to protect China’s northern borders by preventing foreign invasion. Much of it was made of mud dug from nearby pits and held together by sticky rice soup instead of mortar; this allowed it to be quickly repaired after every attack.
The Great Wall of China is one of the most famous structures in all of history and it’s no small wonder why. The Great Wall of China is more than 5,500 miles (8,850 kilometers) long and is among the oldest structures on Earth. The Great Wall was built to protect China from enemies such as the Mongols and other invaders over a period of almost 2,000 years. Sections of this massive structure can still be visited today. So how tall is the Great Wall of China? If we’re talking about modern bits and pieces of wall that are renovated or repaired – probably not very tall at all.
Sections of the Great Wall that were intact hundreds of years ago could have been as high as 25 feet (8 meters). But the Great Wall’s height naturally decreases as it gets older and more of it falls into disrepair. In fact, there are very few places where the Great Wall of China is actually visible from space today even though you might be tempted to believe its rising and falling gray-and-tan bricks can easily be seen from a low orbit. The Great Wall is built with different materials at different points in history so it has a variety of heights depending on where you’re looking.
The Great Wall near Beijing, for example, reaches as high as 40 feet (12 meters) in some spots because this is where many renovations have been done during modern times. Most people visiting China don’t come across those taller sections of Great Wall. The Great Wall of China is not a single, continuous wall, but rather a series of short walls that look like they were all connected at some point in history. The Great Wall can be seen from space as it has been photographed by astronauts on the International Space Station .
It’s not visible with the naked eye from those altitudes, though. You’ll need powerful binoculars or a telescope to see the Great Wall from orbit — and you’d better be looking during the day when sunlight reflects off its surface and makes it stand out against Earth’s surface. An individual brick might measure about 0. 8 inch (2 centimeters) thick and 4 inches (10 centimeters) high and wide. Bricks were used because they were cheap and easy to make, but also because they were very durable. The Great Wall is made of bricks, stone and tamped earth (loose dirt).
The Great Wall wasn’t all built at once; various parts of it were started between the 7th century B. C. and 16th century A. D. It’s not entirely clear how many laborers died building the Great Wall or where all their bodies are buried since nobody wrote down that information at the time (and probably didn’t think it would be important to record), but experts estimate that about 400,000 people lost their lives working on the Great Wall construction over thousands of years. Some people believe more than 1 million workers died during this.
Although it was never meant to be a continuous barrier along China’s northern border, it does stretch from Shanhaiguan in the east to Lop Nur in the west. The Great Wall snakes through mountains and plateaus while crisscrossing rivers on its way across China. But what about that famous scene from ” Raiders of the Lost Ark,” where Indiana Jones scales a giant wall while being chased by big rolling balls with spikes on them? That scene takes place on an old fort on top of a mountain pass in northwest China not part of the Great Wall at all!
However, the Great Wall is more than just beautiful scenery. It is a testament to the hard work and dedication of many Chinese citizens (Klara, 1).
Even so, not many people know how the Great Wall was made or why it was even needed in the first place. The Great Wall was meant to protect China from invaders coming from the North. There have been various dynasties in China’s history. In order for each dynasty to distinguish itself from those that came before and after it, as well as allow history to remember its name clearly, each dynasty had a custom of building their own sections of Great Wall. To put this into perspective, the Great Wall in its entirety is actually a series of walls built by different Chinese dynasties in order to protect their own borders and kingdoms (Karls, 2).
It was hard to build this Great Wall. To put one brick on top of another, the workers had to lift it up using a bamboo rope with both ends tied to something strong at either side. The bricks were made from rice flour and sticky rice was added into the mixture so that when dried in the sun ,the bricks would not fly away with the wind. This method helped endure many people’s efforts over several centuries (Dillon, 1).
