Overview

What is commonly referred to as the Great Wall of China is actually four great walls rather than a single, continuous wall. The oldest section of one of the four Great Walls of China was begun in 221 B.C., not long after China was unified into an empire out of a loose configuration of feudal states. The most famous early wall construction is attributed to the first Chinese emperor, Qin Shihuangdi. Scholars generally credit him with the restoration, repair, and occasional destruction of earlier walls, and ordering new construction to create a structure to protect China's northern frontiers against attack by nomadic people. Historians continue to debate the form these fortifications took. Though records mention the chang-cheng (long wall) of Emperor Shihuangdi, no reliable historical accounts indicate the length of the Qin wall or the exact route they followed...