The Great Wall of China is the only man-made construction that can be seen from space. It is 6000 kilometers long. It runs east to west near China's northern border and has an unusual shape. It looks as if its architects did not have any specific plans. It looks like a snake or a long road. Nobody knows why its shape is like this but legend states that it was built to imitate the movements of a dragon -a popular religious symbol in China.

The section of the wall visited by most tourists is at Badaling Pass near Beijing. Here, the building material is grey granite blocks six meters high. On both sides of its roof there are low wall which protect you from falling off the Wall. In the middle there is a road which is wide enough for five horses running side by side. other sections of the Great Wall are built of various materials often of poor quality for example wood or sand depending on whether the Wall crossed deserts plains or countrysides.

The people who built the Great Wall were often those who could not pay thier taxes prisoners of war and criminals. There were about 1 million slaves working on the Wall. They lived in poor conditions in places called work camps. They worked without clothes during the summer and they wore only animal skins in the winter. They often died of disease and hunger.

People who died were often buried in its foundations making the Wall the 'world's largest cemetery'.

There are still many of the original 25000 towers left. They are about 12 meters high and the distance between two neighbouring towers is over 200 meters. The army usually lived in these towers. In the period of the Wall's glory almost one million men stayed there.

Today the Great Wall is one of China's most popular tourist attraction. Where else in the world can you see something built by man over twenty-two centuries ago...??