How long is the Great Wall of China?

The total length of the Great Wall of China built in different dynasties is 21,196.18 kilometers (13,170.70 miles), announced by China's State Administration of Cultural Relics in 2012. The length of the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) is 8,851.8 kilometers (5,500.3 miles), and there is about 526 kilometers (327 miles) lying in Beijing.

The Ming Great Wall is the best-preserved among all, extending from Hushan in Liaoning to Jiayuguan in Gansu. It includes 6,259.6-kilometer (3,889.5-mile) artificial wall, 359.7-kilometer (223.5-mile) trench and 2,232.5-kilometer (1,387.2-mile) natural barrier. It is composed of 5,723 beacon towers, 7,062 watching towers, 3,357 wall platforms and 1,026 other related ruins. The Great Wall sections in Beijing are mainly left by the Ming Dynasty.

Many ancient dynasties have participated in building the Wall, and many sections are located in remote mountains, grassland or deserts which make the measurement a problem. Thanks to modern measuring techniques, and after a 5-year archaeological survey, the total length has been finally revealed. The Great Wall of China length in km is 21,196.18 kilometers. How long is the Great Wall of China in miles? It is 13,170.70 miles. The China wall length is surprisingly more than twice as long as the previous estimates.

The wall relics mainly distribute in 15 provinces and regions, including Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Shandong, Henan, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Qinghai. There are 43,721 relics, including the walls, trenches, towers, and fortresses.

The wall bricks are taken for private use.

The length of the Great Wall is increasing due to new finds and renovations.The wall is becoming shorter and shorter day by day due to the natural erosion and human activity. Some people tore down the wall in the name of modern construction, or even took the bricks from the wall for private use. All of these actions brought large damage to the wall and many parts became unrecognizable. The implementation of the Protection Regulation since 2006 stops some human damage, but the length of the Great Wall has been inevitably shortened.
 

40% of the restoration of Jiankou Great Wall in Beijing is finished by the end of 2016. Hefangkou, Xishuiyu, and many other wild sections are also under renovation, making the wall total longer and longer.

In 2012, a greater than 40-kilometer (24.9-mile) length of Ming Wall was discovered in Jixian County, Tianjin, which is one twentieth of the entire Ming Great Wall. Also in 2012, a 1.3-kilometer (0.8-mile) remnant wall was detected, which belongs to the Northern Qi Dynasty (550 - 577). In 2014, a wall of the Western Han Dynasty (202 BC - 9 AD) measuring 46.585 kilometers (28.95 miles) was found in Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia. In addition, the nine new sections of the Qin Dynasty (221 - 207 BC) were found at the boundary between Ningxia and Gansu in 2015. And around 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) long section was discovered in Liangcheng County, Inner Mongolia in 2017.

Further Reading

Great Wall of China FAQs

Fun Facts about Great Wall: 25 Things You didn’t Know

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Great Wall of China Facts for Kids