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The Great Wall of China

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  Location: Huairou District, China (Continent of Asia)
• Built by: Many different dynasties built different sections of the wall and then joined them together
• Date built: The first section in the state of Chu construction started around 770 – 476 BC during the Spring and Autumn Period (the Zhou dynasty). (about 2,700 years ago)
• How long to build: It took over 2,000 years to build The Great Wall of China throughout all the different dynasties (the individual Warring States, Qin, Han, and Ming dynasties)
• Weight: About 3,873,000,000 individual bricks and about 100,000,000 tonnes of stone, bricks, and mud make up the Great Wall.
• Size: The length is 13,170 mi (21,196 km)
• The wall started as individual walls and watchtowers that protected small kingdoms that the Mongols from the north were invading.
• Emperor Qin Shi Huang (259 – 210 BC) ordered that the northern sections of the wall and each state’s borders join to form a unified line of defense against Mongol harassment from the north, the first actual Great Wall.
• The workers used sticky rice to hold the stones together.
• The workers were primarily prisoners, but soldiers and the poor helped build the wall. Prisoners had to shave their heads, blacken their faces, and wear chains around their feet.
• About 400,000 people died building the Great Wall.
• When a person died during this time, their family would come to the wall and carry a rooster over the wall where they died. They believed the rooster’s crowing would help their spirit from being trapped in the wall and walk it forever.
• The People’s Republic of China has been rebuilding parts of the wall since about 1957.
• About ⅓ of the original wall has disappeared over time due to time and weather.
• It is today one of the “7 Wonders of the World” and is the longest artificial structure.