The story
Xi'an was Chang'an, capital of the Han (206 BC–AD 220) and the Tang (618–907), the city at the eastern end of the Silk Road. When the Tang fell, the vast capital shrank to the walls of its old imperial city. In 1370, two years after founding the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the Hongwu emperor ordered a new wall round that core, larger and stronger. It was finished in 1378, and in 1568 its rammed earth was faced with grey brick.
Most Chinese cities pulled their walls down in the 20th century to make way for roads. Xi'an kept its own, mended it from the 1980s, and joined the last broken stretches so that the whole ring is now walkable. It is 13.74 kilometres round, 12 metres high, 12 to 14 metres wide on top, with a moat outside and a park along it. Today more than three thousand sensors watch it for cracks and movement.
What is here
One ticket lets you up at any open gate and walk or ride the whole ring. The moat park below is free.
| Part | Ticket |
|---|---|
| Yongning Gate (South Gate) and its barbican | Wall ticket |
| The Kuixing Tower | Wall ticket |
| The ring of the wall and its towers | Wall ticket; bicycles and carts extra |
| The Hanguang Gate site museum | Ask at the gate whether your ticket covers it |
| The moat and the ring park | Free |
If you have one minute
On top of the South Gate
Look down into the square enclosure below you. This is the barbican: an enemy who broke through the outer gate found himself in a box of walls, with archers on every side. The South Gate, Yongning, has three towers in a line: the drawbridge tower over the moat, the archery tower with its rows of windows, and the main tower where you stand.
Then look along the top of the wall. Every 120 metres or so a square bastion sticks out. That spacing is about twice a bowshot, so archers on two bastions could cover every metre of wall between them.
Things people often get wrong
"This is the wall of Tang Chang'an." Tang Chang'an was about seven times larger. This is the Ming wall, built on the line of the Tang imperial city at its heart.
"It is the wall of the Han." The Han city lay northwest of today's centre; only its earthen ramparts remain, in the fields.
People who stood here
We searched Chinese sources first for this list, then English and Indian ones.
- Bill Clinton (US president, born 1946)On the evening of 25 June 1998, at the start of his state visit, he was welcomed at the South Gate with a ceremony in Tang dress and given the key to the city. "Here in this ancient capital, China seems very young to me tonight," he said. He was the first foreign leader to receive the ceremony.
- Michelle Obama (US first lady, born 1964)In March 2014 she walked the wall with her daughters and played jianzi, the Chinese shuttlecock, with local students.
- Narendra Modi (Indian prime minister, born 1950)On 14 May 2015 he was given a Tang welcome at the South Gate and walked through it into the old city.
- Xi Jinping (Chinese president, born 1953)In his home province he welcomed Modi at the gate tower and gave a banquet for him on the wall, the first time, he said, that he had hosted a foreign leader in his home town.
Go deeper: six stops round the wall7 stops · about 2 min to read
A full round is 13.74 kilometres: two hours on a hired bicycle, four on foot. Most people go up at the South Gate and turn east, so the six stops follow that order.
1. Yongning, the South Gate
The four main gates are named Changle (lasting joy) in the east, Anding (peace) in the west, Yongning (eternal peace) in the south and Anyuan (pacifying the distant) in the north. Read together they say: may Chang'an be at peace for ever. The South Gate is the grandest, and in the evenings the welcome ceremony in Tang dress is staged here.
2. The Kuixing Tower
Just east of the South Gate a small two-storey pavilion sits on the wall. Kuixing is the star god of examinations, and the tower looked down on the Confucian temple and the schools below, today the Stele Forest Museum.
3. The top of the wall
Inside, the wall is rammed earth, layer on layer. Outside, the parapet has crenels for archers; inside, a lower wall kept people from falling. Look for the drains: stone channels that carry rain from the top down the face, because water is the enemy of an earth wall.
4. The corner towers and the long sides
At each corner stands a tower, and along the sides rise wooden watchtowers on the bastions. From the east and north walls you see the modern city pressing right up to the moat; from the south, on a clear day, the line of the Qinling mountains.
5. The Hanguang Gate
On the south wall west of the South Gate, the Ming builders enclosed a gate of the Tang imperial city. Excavated and opened as a museum, it shows the Tang gate passage inside the Ming wall, with the layers of earth of the Sui (581–618), Tang, Ming and Qing one above another. This is where you see that the wall really stands on Chang'an.
6. The moat and the ring park
Come down and walk a stretch of the moat. In the mornings people do tai chi, play chess and sing Qinqiang, the loud local opera. The wall is a monument and also the city's back garden.
The wall and the same years elsewhere
The wall was finished in 1378, the year two rival popes were elected and the Western Church split for forty years.
