Badaling Great Wall
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The earliest section of The Great Wall to be opened to tourists, the Badaling Section is the most visited section of the wall. Located 70 kilometers (43 miles) north of Beijing, this section has been extensively restored to give visitors an idea of what the wall looked like when new. This section was rebuilt built during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and was the military outpost of the Juyongguan Pass. The mountains are very steep with an average altitude of over 1,000 meters (3,282 feet). Built as early as the Qin Dynasty (221-206BC), it was built to protect China from attacks by nomadic tribes in the north.
The wall was made of rammed earth with an outer coating of huge stones and bricks. The top of the wall is 6 meters (20 feet) wide to allow horses to travel five abreast. On the northern part of the Badaling Section are small holes to allow archers to shoot at any attacking army. The Great Wall also features an ingenious system of drains and gutters to allow rain water to quickly be removed. Located at regular intervals are blockhouses and located at the top of each peak are signal fire platforms which were used as a form of communications in case of attack. The fires would be lit and guns would be fired to communicate the size of an attacking army. The next signal fire would be lit and this would continue down the line until it reached Beijing.
The Badaling Section of the Great wall was listed as a key national cultural relic in 1961 and was listed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List on July 7, 2007. It has been visited by tens of millions of visitors and over 370 government leaders from China and around the world have visited this section.
