Reading (U12/ Pre-Int)

The Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China is one of the most incredible sights in the world. It is the world’s longest human-made structure, and is about 6,000 km long. The wall is not actually one continuous wall, but many sections of earth and brick walls, built over many centuries. If you put the sections together, the wall would go from New York to Los Angeles, and if the bricks of the Great Wall were made into a single wall, five metres high and one metre thick, it would go all around the earth! The Great Wall was begun about 3,000 years ago and was still being built up to about 450 years ago. Originally the wall was built to separate tribes of people who were at war in China, and later it protected the country from attackers. For many years, people hated the wall because it had cost so much money to built, and many people had died while building it. But today the wall is popular with both Chinese and foreign tourists. One section, at Badaling near Beijing, has been visited by 130 million people. Many sections of the wall have disappeared because of the weather, or because people have used the bricks for building houses or roads. The wall was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.