Where Is the Great Wall? More than two thousand years ago, the emperor of China had workers start building a wall. It was a wall like no other on earth--then or now. It has earned its name: the Great Wall. It is the largest structure that humans have ever made! It is impossible to give its exact length. That's because the Great Wall wasn't built at one time. It's a series of walls constructed over two thousand years, starting in ancient times. Emperors built new walls and linked them to old ones. Some walls decayed and fell apart. But the last Great Wall, built from about 1400 to 1600, still stands. It stretches in an unbroken line four thousand miles across China's northern border. If placed in North America, the main wall would reach from the tip of Florida to the North Pole. There are also side walls that reach down into China to protect and enclose important places. Altogether, estimates of the Great Wall's length range from about six thousand miles to over ten thousand miles. By any measure, it's huge! Many compare the Great Wall to a dragon, a symbol of power and strength in China. The head of the wall starts about sixty-six feet offshore, in the Pacific Ocean on China's east coast. Then it twists and turns through the land--skirting rivers, crossing grasslands and plains, climbing steep mountains, and plunging down cliffs. Finally it ends in the harsh, dry desert on China's western end. This amazing feat of engineering was handmade! There were no machines or power tools to help builders--no forklifts, tractors, drills, or cement mixers. There were just human hands using tools made of stone, iron, and wood. The wall ended up taking a terrible human toll. It is believed that a million Chinese died while building it. Today the Great Wall awes visitors from all over the world. The story of China itself is told in its bricks, dirt, and stone. CHAPTER 1 A Reason for Walls Excerpted from Where Is the Great Wall? by Patricia Brennan Demuth All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
