Hey everyone, welcome to World Heritage Journey.
For today's video, we're at the Great Wall of China, near Beijing, China.
The Great Wall of China is among the most famous structures in the entire world.
Stretching an incredible 22,000 kilometres across northern China, parts of the wall have
existed in one form or another since around 500 BC.
Although the World Heritage site covers various sections of the wall, we chose to focus our
visit on the Mutianyu section, not far north of Beijing as it's both easily accessible,
and in great condition.
One thing we were really struck by, was despite its fame, our knowledge of the wall was really
incomplete or actually just plain wrong.
For starters, it's definitely not a single wall, that runs the entire length of China.
It's really more a system of defensive barriers in a whole bunch of different places.
Some of the earliest parts of the wall are from pre-imperial China, and mark out the
borders of long-disappeared Chinese kingdoms.
Next, the stone walls like you've seen in this video only make up certain sections of
the wall.
Large sections of the Wall are just earthworks like dikes, mounds and trenches, and in some
places it just uses natural river barriers!
The section we visited, around Mutianyu, was largely built during the early Ming dynasty
in the 15th century.
Yongle, third and greatest of the Ming emperors, wanted to secure his new empire and especially
his new capital of Beijing from the Mongol invasions of previous centuries, so he massively
strengthened the wall in this area.
But the wall served purposes other than defence.
In addition to controlling who came in, it also controlled who could leave, lowering the influence
of foreign powers.
It controlled trade, allowing for easier collection of taxes and excise.
It provided easy transportation for armies along the frontiers.
And signal beacons built into the watchtowers allowed for long-range communication.
Although the section we visited at Mutianyu is in excellent condition following modern
restoration work, huge parts of the wall are in disrepair, if not outright ruin.
After the fall of the Ming in 1644, the new Qing dynasty took the throne.
The Qings hailed from Manchuria, an area of north-east China which sits outside the wall, so they
weren't particularly interested in keeping their homelands walled off.
And finally - can you see the Great Wall from space?
Well, yes and no.
Apparently it's visible from very low orbits like on the International Space Station, but
it isn't any more noticeable than any other man-made structures.
From higher orbits - nope!