Tours Introduce:The Great Wall, a glory of the Chinese nation, is the symbol of the ancient culture and the long-standing history of China. Like the Pyramids of Egypt, the Taj Mahal in India and the Hanging Garden of Babylon, is one of the great wonders of the world. Today, the Great Wall, however, as a work of military defence against harassment and invasion from without, has become things of past, yet instead it is playing a role in bridging up the friendship between the Chinese people and the people of the rest of the world.
Starting out in the east on the bank of the Yalu River in Loaoning Province, the Great Wall stretches westwards for 12700 kilometers to Jiayuguan in the Gobi Desert, thus known as the Ten Thousand Li Wall in China. The Wall climbs up and down, twists and turns along the ridges of the Yanshan and Yinshan Mountain Chains through five province------Liaoning, Hebei, Shanxi and Gansu, and two autonomous regions---Ningxia and Inner Mongolia, binding the northern China together.
In the area of Beijing, there are three sections of the Great Wall for visitors to enjoy. One is the Great wall at Badaling than snakes in Yanqing County, the Juyong Pass in Changping District, and still the other that twists and turns in the Huairou District is the Great Wall at Mutianyu.
As a cultural heritage, the Wall belongs not only to China but to the world. The Venice Charter says:” Historical and cultural architecture not only includes the individual works, but also the urban or rural environment that witnessed certain civilizations, significant social developments or historical events.” The Great Wall is the largest of such historical and cultural architecture, and that is why it continues to be so attractive to people all over the world. In 1987, the Wall was listed by UNESCO as a world cultural heritage site.
