Home › History Moments › The Great Wall of China
🏛️ The Great Wall of China
A wall so long it would stretch across a whole continent — built over hundreds of years to protect China.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
📍 Where is it?
📍 Badaling, China — see it on the big map →
The Great Wall of China is the longest wall in the world. If you put all its sections together, it stretches for more than 20,000 kilometres — long enough to cross the whole of North America. The part most visitors see today, at Badaling near Beijing, was rebuilt during the Ming dynasty, about 500 years ago.
The wall was built over hundreds of years by different rulers, to protect China from invaders from the north. Soldiers lived in watchtowers along the wall and lit fires to warn each other when enemies were coming.
Building it was hard, dangerous work in steep mountains, and it took millions of workers. Today the wall is one of the most famous places on Earth. You can walk along the top of it and see it winding over the hills like a giant stone dragon.
🤩 Wow fact!
All the sections of the Great Wall put together stretch for more than 20,000 kilometres.
🧠 Quiz time!
What was the Great Wall built to do?