The Great Wall

As most of our friends and family know, the Hill Family loves geography, history and travel.   Upon arrival in Bejing, our agency will give us a couple of days to acclimate to the new time zone and "rest" before traveling on to Henan to meet our new daughter.   We will have the opportunity to visit several sites in Bejing and the area.   The Great Wall is on our list.    Here's a little information I found:                Brian

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The Great Wall of China ‘zig-zags’ central-east Asia and it is an incredible structure. It took over a thousand years to build and is over 1500 miles in length. It is the longest, oldest, most time consuming construction project ever attempted, in history. Neil Armstrong (the Apollo astronaut) said that it could even be seen from space.

The Great Wall was built for defensive purposes, especially to stop attack from the north of China. Emperors feared that China would be conquered from the north. The Wall stretches across deserts and up and down mountain ranges.   Building started in the Qin dynasty (221-206BC) and continued until the Jin dynasty (1115-1234AD).

The Great Wall was part of a Chinese strategy of preventing mass invasion. In the early years the walls were made of rammed earth but as hundreds of years past more sophisticated methods of building were developed with rocks, bricks and mortar being used. It is estimated that over one million people helped in the construction of the Great Wall.