Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Great Wall Of China

Definitions: Great Wall Of China

Great Wall Of China

Noun

1. A wall in northern China built for defensive purposes during the 3rd century BC; 1,500 miles long and averaging 6 meters wide.

2. A fortification 1,500 miles long built across northern China in the 3rd century BC.

Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
 


Synonyms: Great Wall Of China

Synonyms: Chinese Wall (n), Great Wall (n). (additional references)

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Specialty Definition: Great Wall of China

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The Great Wall of China (長城 in pinyin: Cháng Chéng, literal meaning: "Long City (Fortress)") is an ancient Chinese fortification, built to protect the Empire of China since the 3rd century BC against the raids of 'barbarians' from Mongolia and Manchuria. The main purpose of the Wall was not to prevent people from crossing but rather to prevent them from bringing their horses.

History

The Wall was built during the reign of The First Emperor, the main leader of the short-lived Qin dynasty. The Wall was not built out of the blue, but created by the joining of several local walls built by the Warring States. It has been renovated and extended by several later dynasties, getting most of its current shape during the Ming Dynasty. The Wall stretches over a formidable 6,400 km, from the boundary with Korea on the Yalu River (Yalu Jiang) to the Gobi desert.

There have been four major discrete constructions and renovations:

  1. 208 BC (the Qin Dynasty)
  2. 1st century BC (the Han Dynasty)
  3. 1138 - 1198 (the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period)
  4. 1368 (the Ming Dynasty)

The Ming Dynasty Great Wall starts on the eastern end at Shanhai Pass (山海关 shan1 hai3 guan1), Qinghuangdao, in Hebei Province next to Bohai Gulf. Spanning nine provinces and 100 counties, it ends on the western end at Jiayu Pass (嘉峪关 jia1 yu4 guan1) located in northwest Gansu Province. Jiayu Pass was intended to greet traveler along the Silk Road. Even though Great Wall ends at Jiayu Pass, there are watchtowers (烽火台 feng1 huo3 tai2) extending beyond Jiayu Pass along the Silk Road. These towers communicated by smoke to signal invasion.

The Manchus crossed the Wall by convincing a crucial general Wu Sangui to open the gates of Shahai Pass and allow the Manchus to cross. After they conquered China, the Wall was of no strategic value as the people who the Wall was intended to keep out were ruling the country.

The government ordered people to work on the wall, and workers were under constant danger of being attacked by brigades. Because many people died while building the wall, it is often called the "longest cemetery on Earth".


"First Gate Under Heaven" under repairs in October 2003. Shanhai Pass, Hebei

Structure

Significant passes (關口) include: The Wall is in disrepair, serving as a playground for some villages and a source of stones to rebuild houses and roads. Sections of the Wall are also prone to graffiti. Parts have been bulldozed because the Wall is in the way of construction projects. The China Great Wall Society works to preserve the Wall. Through June, 2003, the Chinese government still had no laws written to protect the Wall.

Recognition

The Wall is sometimes considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World, but it was actually unknown in ancient Greece when the "wonders of the world" were listed.

The Wall was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.

There is an untrue urban legend that the Great Wall is the only man made object that can be seen from space or from the moon. The Great Wall cannot be seen from the moon. It can be seen from low earth orbit, but so can many other man made structures.

External links

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Great Wall of China."

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Crosswords: Great Wall Of China

Specialty definitions using "Great Wall of China": Seven Wonders of the World. (references)

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Modern Usage: Great Wall Of China

DomainUsage

Movie/TV Titles

The Great Wall of China (1970)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Commercial Usage: Great Wall Of China

DomainTitle

Books

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Image Slideshow: Great Wall Of China

Photos:
Great Wall Of China

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Illustrations:
Great Wall Of China

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Computer Images:
Great Wall Of China

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Photo Album: Great Wall Of China

ThumbnailDescription & Credit

Great wall of China. Credit: Library of Congress.

Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Great Wall Of China

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.
 
ExpressionFrequency
per Day

great wall of china

1,978

great wall of china picture

95

great wall of china history

44

map of the great wall of china

26

photo of the great wall of china

13

information on the great wall of china

13

pic of great wall of china

11

great wall of china photograph

2

great wall of china marathon

2

tour great wall of china

2
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Modern Translations: Great Wall Of China

Language Translations for "Great Wall of China"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.

Japanese Kanji 

  

万里の長城 . (various references)

   

Japanese Katakana 

  

ば"りのちょうじょう, はお"りのちょうじょう. (various references)

   

Pig Latin

  

eatgray allway ofay inachay

   

Portuguese

  

grande homem. (various references)

   

Spanish

  

muralla grande china. (various references)

   

Turkish

  

çin seddi (great wall). (various references)

Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

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Misspellings: Great Wall Of China

Misspellings

"Great Wall Of China" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: graet wall of china. (additional references)

Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Anagrams: Great Wall Of China

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams

Words within the letters "a-a-a-c-e-f-g-h-i-l-l-n-o-r-t-w"

-4 letters: flowcharting, reallocating.

-5 letters: archegonial, farthingale.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.

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Alternative Orthography: Great Wall Of China


Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)

47 72 65 61 74      57 61 6C 6C      4F 66      43 68 69 6E 61

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)

            

Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)

01000111 01110010 01100101 01100001 01110100 00100000 01010111 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01001111 01100110 00100000 01000011 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100001

HTML Code (1990) (references)

&#71 &#114 &#101 &#97 &#116 &#32 &#87 &#97 &#108 &#108 &#32 &#79 &#102 &#32 &#67 &#104 &#105 &#110 &#97

ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)

0047 0072 0065 0061 0074      0057 0061 006C 006C      004F 0066      0043 0068 0069 006E 0061

Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)

41847167862576778782497223774758067

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INDEX

1. Definition
2. Synonyms
3. Crosswords
4. Usage: Modern
5. Usage: Commercial
6. Images: Slideshow
7. Images: Photo Album
8. Expressions: Internet
9. Translations: Modern
10. Derivations
11. Anagrams
12. Orthography
13. Bibliography


  

Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

 

 

 

 

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