Interesting facts about the Great Wall of China – A significant piece of ancient history

The people of China don't call the Wall 'the Great Wall' and the Chinese term for the Wall emerges from it's past, long before the term 'Great Wall' was in fact, used. Since every city had its own wall, the Chinese used one word which they still use to this day and it's 'Cheng' which translates to city wall. Because the Great Wall in much more than that, the Chinese use the adjective 'long' in front of it so it is referred to as 'chang cheng' which means Long City.

While most of the images make the wall seem as if it is one long line, it isn't – it also has side walls, circular walls, parallel walls and even sections with no wall in areas such as high mountains or rivers where there are barriers instead. Back in the day during the Qin Dynasty roughly around 221-206 BC, the walls were bound together using glutinous rice flour!

Since it's clear the wall is just not one line and that there are many, only few parts of the wall look like the glorious creation tourists go to. There are tame sections which are covered in wilderness, with overgrown plants and wild areas that vanish into gaps made by roads and reservoirs. The sections you see around Beijing, during your holiday in Pan Pacific Beijing or any other Beijing hotel have ancient precedents, some of which are run directly beneath the wall. These sections are nothing compared to the other sections, with run westward in parallel lines and scattered segments.

One might wonder how long it took to build this magnificent Great Wall. The very first section went up four centuries before Qin Shi Huang, who became China's emperor in 221 BC who then ordered a decade long project to unite and expand these defenses into a single barrier. The construction of the entire wall look more than two millennia, out of which much was built during the Ming dynasty.

While there have been rumours stating that bodies were buried in and around the Wall, no bones have been found. These rumours are said to have emanated from a chief historian of the Han Dynasty, who criticized his own emperor by slighting his Qin predecessor.

The Wall was mainly built for the purpose of keeping out invaders from foreign lands, however, the wall was easily overrun or avoided by northern tribes. In 1449, the Mongols inflicted a defeat on the south of the Wall, however, it fell to the Manchus when a local Ming general opened the far east gate to the invaders.