The Great Wall of China, China

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The first major wall was built during the reign of The First Emperor, the main emperor of the short-lived Qin dynasty. This wall was not constructed as a single endeavor, but rather was created by the joining of several regional walls built by the Warring States. It was located much further north than the current Great Wall, and very little remains of it. A defensive wall on the northern border was built and maintained by several dynasties at different times in Chinese history. The Great Wall that can still be seen today was built during the Ming Dynasty, on a much larger scale and with longer lasting materials (solid stone used for the sides and the top of the Wall) than any wall that had been built before. The primary purpose of the wall was not to keep out people, who could scale the wall, but to insure that semi-nomadic people on the outside of the wall could not cross with their horses or return easily with stolen property.

There have been four major walls:
1. 208 BC (the Qin Dynasty)
2. 1st century BC (the Han Dynasty)
3. 1138 - 1198 (the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period)
4. 1368-1620 (from Hongwu Emperor until Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty)

The Ming Dynasty Great Wall starts on the eastern end at Shanhai Pass, near Qinhuangdao, in Hebei Province, next to Bohai Gulf. Spanning nine provinces and 100 counties, it ends on the western end at Jiayu Pass located in northwest Gansu Province. Jiayu Pass was intended to greet travelers along the Silk Road. Even though The Great Wall ends at Jiayu Pass, there are watchtowers (烽火台 fēng huǒ tái) extending beyond Jiayu Pass along the Silk Road. These towers communicated by smoke to signal invasion.

The Manchus crossed the Wall by convincing a crucial general Wu Sangui to open the gates of Shanhai Pass and allow the Manchus to cross. Legend has it that they took three days for the Manchu armies to pass. After they conquered China, the Wall was of no strategic value as the people who the Wall was intended to keep out were ruling the country (becoming the Qing Dynasty).

The government ordered people to work on the wall, and workers were under constant danger of being attacked by brigands. Because many people died while building the wall, it is often called the "longest cemetery on Earth".

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