THE GREAT WALL

Great Wall of China , Chinese (Pinyin) Wanli Changcheng or (Wade-Giles romanization) Wan-li Ch’ang-ch’eng (“10,000-Li Long Wall”) , extensive bulwark erected in ancient China, one of the largest building-construction projects ever undertaken.
The Great Wall actually consists of numerous walls—many of them parallel to each other—built over some two millennia across northern China and southern Mongolia. The most extensive and best-preserved version of the wall dates from the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and runs for some 5,500 miles (8,850 km) east to west from Mount Hu near Dandong, southeastern Liaoning province, to Jiayu Pass west of Jiuquan, northwestern Gansu province.