See China’s Iconic Great Wall From Above
China’s Great Wall is one of the world’s great feats of engineering and an enduring monument to the strength of an ancient civilization. It is actually a network of fortifications rather than a single structure, and is the product of countless labors over a period of some two thousand years. Qin Shi Huang took the remnants of truly ancient fortifications, walls, and earthworks begun in the fifth century B.C. and linked them into a unified wall circa 220 B.C. as part of a massive project to protect China against marauding barbarians from the north.