Great Wall in Gansu

Gansu Province is one of the provinces which have the most sections of the Great Wall. Recent research shows that the walls built in Gansu are mainly the relics of four dynasties: Warring Periods, Qin, Han and Ming. The total length reaches 2,734 miles, which provides a precious material to the study of the Great Wall and the history, geography and culture of western areas in China.

The construction of the Great Wall follows the principle of using the local materials. In the northeast mountainous areas, the wall was built from the local large pieces of stone or bricks, which couldn't be obtained in the dry western Loess Plateau and desert belt. The clever ancient laboring people built the wall by ramming the earth as solid as stones. This dense earth made the body of the wall difficult to deform and split. Jiayuguan Pass is a typical example built in this way. In the desert area, people created the wall by laying local branches of red willow, reeds and sand layer upon layer. Yumenguan Pass and Yangguan Pass are relics of this kind.

The present state of the Great Wall is not encouraging. One third of the section is basically complete, one third is broken and the rest is disappearing. The wall in Gansu is not an exception. It is suffering from both natural disasters and human activities. The natural factor includes wind erosion, flood, rain and earthquake. Human activities are even more destructive. The wall is pushed over by innocent people in order to build railways, highroads and houses. In Gansu, the valuable wall relic in Warring States is only half of the original 373 miles. The Han's Wall is only left 621 miles compared to the original 1,367 miles and 621 miles of the Ming's wall can be seen from the primitive 870 miles.