Perhaps China''''s best known monument and even a national symbol that is the Great Wall is not what most people imagine it to be like. The existing wall is not several thousand years old, nor is it, as is widely imagined to be visible from the outer space (astronauts confirm this). Indeed, the Great Wall is not even a single, continuous structure. Rather today, it consists of a network of walls and towers that leave the frontier open in places.
The Great Wall is a popular name for a semi-legendary wall built to protect China’s northern border in the 3rd century BC, and for impressive stone and earthen fortifications built along a different northern border in the 15th and 16th centuries’ ad, long after the ancient structure had disappeared. The Great wall can be attributed to Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China and the founder of the Qin dynasty. Ruins of the later wall are found today along former border areas from Bo Hai (a gulf of the Yellow Sea) in the east to Gansu Province in the west. The Great Wall is visited often near Beijing, at a site called Ju-yong-guan. It is a steep climb for people who rather take a few hours to complete the strneous circuit.
Interestingly some 300,000 people were mobilized to build the wall which is stretched over 6700 kms. As a matter of fact it attracts more than 10 million visitors every year. It is a picture perfect monument which stands tall on the list of wonders of the world. The great wall appears like a huge dragon winding its way along the mountainous stretch.