
Is the Great Wall of China Really Great
Snaking through the northern areas of China, climbing mountains and going through the grassy plains is the “长城 (cháng chéng), 万里长城 (wàn lǐ cháng chéng)”. Don’t be surprised its nothing new it’s the Chinese name for the Great Wall in China, “The Long Wall of 10,000 Miles” when translated into English translation. When constricted, its sole purpose was to defend the country from the invaders in the north, but time has transformed this marvel into a tourist site and an endurance test for daredevils. The wall has also become the measure of how long things are “Oh! It’s as long as the great wall of China”. A fact that you might not have known is that this marvelous structure of bricks is not held together by your conventional cement, but by an adhesive made from grounded rice. Incredibly strong isn’t it? Here we bring you some further hidden secrets from the lengths of the Great Wall. Measuring the Great Wall How many of you know the length of the equator? Not many of you! Let’s enrich your knowledge. The equator is a staggering 40,075 kilometers, now what’s more aweing is that the Great Wall is just 1158 kilometers more than the equator’s half. So to be precise, that’s some 21,196.18 km of the wall you are looking at! If you were to run the whole wall, you would have ran nearly half the earth (Woah!). The current structure (8,851.8 km) displays the remains from the Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644). Be surprised by this marvel of construction! As it was constructed nearly 2700 years ago, that means without the cranes and the mixers and the high tech engineering. Let’s begin the list! It’s not just long! It’s tall too! It averages to about 6 -7 meters, reaching a height of […]