How long is the Great Wall?

On September 15, 202 1 Belt and Road Great Wall International Folk Culture and Art Festival will be held in Langfang Silk Road International Art Exchange Center and Qinhuangdao, Hebei Province. The three-day grand event will spread and inherit the world cultural heritage value and spiritual wealth carried by the Belt and Road Initiative and the Great Wall of Wan Li through wonderful artistic exchange activities. As a representative symbol of the Chinese nation and an important symbol of Chinese civilization, how long is the Great Wall?

2 1 196.5438+08km: The Great Wall of Wan Li is more than Wan Li.

From Shanhaiguan in Hebei Province in the east to Jiayuguan in Gansu Province in the west ... Everyone in China knows a little about the Great Wall, but many people don't know how long it is, so it's easy to confuse the Great Wall built in different times. Known as "Wan Li", the total length of the Great Wall exceeds 1 Wan Li.

According to historical documents, more than 20 vassal states and feudal dynasties built the Great Wall. If you add up the Great Wall built in different times, it is more than 10 in Wan Li, and the length of the Great Wall in Qin, Han and Ming dynasties exceeds 1 Wan Li.

Due to the long history, most of the Great Wall in the early dynasties was incomplete, and the Great Wall built in the Ming Dynasty was well preserved. The narrow sense of the Great Wall also refers to the Great Wall. On April 18, 2009, National Cultural Heritage Administration and the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping jointly announced that the Great Wall of Ming Dynasty starts from Hushan in Liaoning in the east and ends at Jiayuguan in Gansu in the west, and passes through 156 counties in Liaoning, Hebei, Tianjin, Beijing, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Ningxia, Gansu and Qinghai from east to west. After passing through the trench of 359.7 kilometers, the natural natural barrier is 2232.5 kilometers.

According to the survey results released by National Cultural Heritage Administration on June 5th, 20th1February, the total length of the Great Wall in China in past dynasties was 21196.18km. This is the first time that China has scientifically and systematically measured the total length of the Great Wall. It not only determined the previously measured length of the Great Wall in Ming Dynasty, but also made a detailed and comprehensive resource survey of the Great Wall in Qin and Han Dynasties and early times.

From the 7th century BC to the middle of17th century, the distance of 22 196. 18km has gathered the wisdom and sweat of the ancient people in China and condensed the industrious and brave civilization and spirit of the people in China. Until today, we can still appreciate the great will and strength of the Chinese nation in the ruins of the Great Wall.

Pre-Qin dynasty: the length is different, and the north and the south are different.

The history of building the Great Wall can be traced back to the Western Zhou Dynasty, and Zhou Youwang's bonfire drama The Prince is the earliest allusions to the Great Wall. At this time, the Great Wall can be divided into the South Great Wall and the North Great Wall according to the different defensive objects and geographical locations. The main purpose of building the South Great Wall is to resist the attacks of other vassal states. As early as the Spring and Autumn Period in the 7th century BC, the State of Chu first built the "Chu Fangcheng" to resist the invasion of other countries. "History of Han Geography" contains: "Ye, the public city of Chu, has the Great Wall,no. Fangcheng." Later, Qi, Han, Wei, Zhao, Yan, Qin and Zhongshan all built the Great Wall to defend themselves.

Because Qin, Zhao and Yan are adjacent to Xiongnu, a powerful nomadic people in the north, the northern borders of the three countries are constantly plundered by Xiongnu. In view of this passive situation, while building the Great Wall to jointly defend the vassals, the three countries also built the Great Wall to repel Hu in the north to ensure the safety of people's lives, property and production activities in the northern part of the three countries.

At this time, the Great Wall is characterized by different directions in the east, south, west and north, and its length is short, ranging from several hundred kilometers to 1000-2000 kilometers.

Today's Chu Great Wall site is mainly located in nanzhao county, Nanyang City, Henan Province and Guaihe Town, Fangcheng County. It is adjacent to Xiaolei Gutai Mountain in the east and Dalei Gutai Mountain in the west, with a residual height of 1- 1.5m, a width of about 4 m, and a total length of 500 m, which provides important material data for studying the history of the Great Wall in China.

Qin: "From Lintao in the west to Liaodong in the east, it winds for more than ten thousand miles."

In the 26th year of Qin Shihuang, Qin annexed six countries, unified the world and established the first unified multi-ethnic centralized state in China history. In order to maintain and consolidate the unprecedented unity and security of the Great Empire, Qin Shihuang successively adopted a series of major strategic measures for national defense construction and frontier defense, one of which was the large-scale construction of the Great Wall of Wan Li. Qin Changcheng is famous for its stone buildings. The Great Wall, a "common defense" between the former vassal states, was demolished, and the Great Wall on the northern border of Qin, Zhao and Yan was connected, expanded and repaired. Since Qin Shihuang built the Great Wall, it has been called the Great Wall of Wan Li. The best portrayal of Qin Changcheng's role is the description in On Qin that "the Huns are more than 700 miles away, and the Hu people dare not go south to herd horses, and the scholars dare not bow down".

The well-preserved Qin Changcheng site is located in Guyang County, Baotou City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, with a cumulative length of about120km. Most of Qin Changcheng is built on the northern slope of the mountains. Standing on a high place, you can still see the Great Wall going up and down like Youlong, and you can still distinguish the remains of ancient bonfires and fortress cities.

Han dynasty: expelling Xiongnu, changing from defending to attacking.

In the Han Dynasty, due to the disrepair of the Great Wall and the scarcity of defenders in the north, the powerful Xiongnu took the opportunity to constantly enter the Great Wall for looting, but the remains of Qin Changcheng still played a role in military defense to a certain extent. After Emperor Wu ascended the throne, in order to expel the Huns, on the basis of repairing the Great Wall built by Meng Tian in Qin Dynasty, a "Outer Great Wall" with a total length of nearly 10,000 kilometers was built from Dawaner Shicheng in the west to the north bank of Yalu River in the east. Unlike Qin Changcheng, which is dominated by earth, stone, wood and tile, the Great Wall generally uses local materials, mainly sand and stone. In Han bamboo slips, the outer Great Wall is called "fortress", the eastern section of the Great Wall is called "Guanglu fortress" and the western section is called "Juyan fortress". Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty built a city here to cultivate fields and raise horses. As a base for defending and attacking Huns, it played a great role in maintaining the security of the Western Han Empire and maintaining the smoothness and safety of the Silk Road, which has extraordinary historical significance.

The site of the Han Great Wall is located on the Urad grassland. The two Great Walls are called "Great Wall outside Han Dynasty" and "Great Wall inside Han Dynasty" by scholars respectively. Most of the two Great Walls pass through grasslands, and there are no stones available. Most of them use rammed earth as walls. After more than two thousand years of wind and rain, many sections have been regarded as roads by modern people. Due to natural and historical reasons, the Great Wall of Han Dynasty in the western section of Hexi in Sai Han is the best preserved. Although it has been eroded by thousands of years of wind and rain, it still stands on the Gobi Desert and is spectacular.

Tang and Song Dynasties: I still attach importance to it and have never been absent.

The Tang and Song Dynasties seem insignificant in the history of the Great Wall construction, but they cannot be ignored. For a long time, "there was no Great Wall in the Tang Dynasty" has always been the conclusion of academic circles, but the Great Wall was actually built in the Tang Dynasty, with the purpose of not "rejecting Hu" but unifying. In the early days of the Tang Dynasty, there were 14 separatist regimes coexisting. In order to resist their capture and intimidation of the Tang Dynasty, the Great Wall from Pingcheng to Lukou came out.

In the Song Dynasty, the Great Wall started from Qingcheng Mountain in kelan county, Shanxi Province in the west and reached Heyeping Mountain in the east. It is located in the existing 38km-long Great Wall of Song Dynasty in Kelan, which fills the blank in the study of the history of the Great Wall in China.

Ming dynasty: restoration and construction, well preserved

The Ming Dynasty was the last dynasty to overhaul the Great Wall, which was different from the Great Wall in Wan Li in the Qin Dynasty. The Ming Great Wall is also called the side wall. In order to consolidate the border defense in the north, the construction of the Great Wall almost never stopped during the 200 years of Ming Dynasty. The construction process of the Ming Great Wall can be roughly divided into three stages: early repair, medium-term large-scale construction and late reconstruction. In addition to the "outer" Great Wall, the Ming Dynasty also built the "inner" Great Wall and the "inner three passes" Great Wall. On the basis of the Northern Qi Dynasty, the "interior wall" starts from Pianguan at the junction of Inner Mongolia and Shanxi in the west, enters Hebei at Yanmenguan and Xing Ping in the east, then goes to the northeast, passes through Laiyuan, Fangshan and Changping counties, reaches Juyongguan directly, and then reaches Huairou Siguan from north to east, and is connected with the "outer" Great Wall, with Zijingguan as the center, showing a general north-south trend. The "Neisanguan" Great Wall is parallel to the "Inner" Great Wall in many places. In some places, the two cities are only tens of miles apart. In addition, a large number of "heavy cities" have been built, and there are 24 "heavy cities" around Yanmenguan.

It starts from Tiger Mountain in Liaoning on the Yalu River in the east, reaches Juyongguan in Beijing in the west, and builds the Ming Great Wall at the foot of Qilian Mountain in Jiayuguan, Gansu Province in the east, with a total length of 885 1.8km, leaving many famous places of interest at home and abroad, such as Badaling, Juyongguan, Shanhaiguan, Jiayuguan and Mutianyu.

Qing Dynasty: Inheriting the previous dynasty, never ending.

In the Qing Dynasty, although Emperor Kangxi ordered not to repair the side wall, the construction of the Great Wall never stopped, and its construction scope basically included all provinces north of the Huaihe River, especially north of the Yellow River. Wang Anding, a Qing Dynasty man, wrote in Xiang Jun Ji, Volume 16, Pingnian Army: "The construction of the Great Wall in Qing Dynasty, including the construction of the Great Wall by Sanjin, Yan, Qi and even Qin, limited the extension of the strategy of defending the enemy." The Qing government repaired and utilized Shanhaiguan and other important passes and sections of the Great Wall on a considerable scale. By Shunzhi and its later period, the famous Great Wall Pass such as Dajingmen was built. Dajingmen, located in the northwest of Hebei Province, is also one of the largest Great Walls built in the Qing Dynasty.

The discovery of the Great Wall in Qing Dynasty pushed back the lower limit of the construction of the Great Wall in the twelve years from the end of Ming Dynasty to the end of Qing Dynasty, which opened up a new field of Great Wall research and was of great value in the history of Great Wall research.

Great Wall Spirit and Great Wall Culture: Not only closed and conservative,

"Throughout the ages, Hu Bing bowed and stopped, and all flesh and blood made peace." Throughout the past two thousand years, the Great Wall has been built and repaired for the purpose of military defense. When it comes to the Great Wall, many people can easily associate it with ethnic confrontation and bloody conflicts along the Great Wall. It seems that the Great Wall is mistaken for tyranny and war by some people. But we should be more objective.

From Qin and Han Dynasties to Ming and Qing Dynasties, many passes along the Great Wall became places or centers for ethnic exchanges in the two major economic and cultural systems of agriculture and animal husbandry. The Great Wall not only ensures the normal development of agricultural economy, culture and animal husbandry economy and culture, but also provides a place and convenience for their exchange and complementarity. It also plays an important role in mediating the two economies and making the agriculture and animal husbandry economy develop in the direction of mutual assistance. At the same time, the construction and defense of the Great Wall and the war in the Great Wall area promoted the extensive integration of the Han nationality in ancient China and more than a dozen ethnic minorities.

What needs to be seen is that the Great Wall plays an irreplaceable role in the world's understanding of China and China's entry into the world. As early as the Han Dynasty, when Zhang Qian went to the Western Regions, the checkpoint fortress of the Great Wall served as his base along the Silk Road, which provided an important guarantee for the exchange and integration of Chinese and foreign cultures. Looking at the present, the Great Wall, as a business card for foreigners to know about China's history, China's culture and the Chinese nation, is also an important window and platform to tell the story of China. UNESCO designated the Great Wall of Wan Li as a world cultural heritage in 1987, which is the best evidence.

As a unique product of China's military culture, the Great Wall has finally changed from a military defense system to a historical relic on the land of China, which is the historical necessity of China's social development. Great Wall spirit and Great Wall culture have been cast in the hearts of everyone in the Chinese nation, which is also a witness of the times. For the people of China, the Great Wall is a symbol of will, courage and strength, as well as a symbol of seeking common ground while reserving differences, cultural tolerance and common development. Protecting homeland and peace, for the country, the Great Wall is the representative symbol of the Chinese nation and an important symbol of Chinese civilization; For China people, the Great Wall has been sublimated into a spiritual support of hard work, wisdom and perseverance.

"The Great Wall Will Not Fall": Excavation and Inheritance of the Great Wall Spirit and Culture

As an important carrier to inherit the national spirit, represent the image of China and carry forward Chinese culture, we should not only treat the Great Wall of Wan Li as the material and cultural heritage of mankind, but also spread its symbolic spirit as the intangible cultural heritage of mankind.

As a material and cultural heritage, the majestic Great Wall site will be turned into a magnificent national business card, conveying the perseverance and courage of "you are not a hero if you don't reach the Great Wall", making it an immortal monument to the integration and development of people of all ethnic groups in China and a historical witness to economic and cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries. Only the Great Wall has such rich and diverse cultural connotations.

As a world heritage, the spiritual culture of the Great Wall can be created through IP, Chinese-foreign exchanges and * * *, and it is endowed with brand-new vitality and renewed vitality in the new era.

It is believed that the "Belt and Road" Great Wall International Folk Culture and Art Festival to be held on September 15 will open a new chapter for the Great Wall spirit.

(Editor: Peng,)