Last year China made a list of sites waiting to apply for the
world heritage list. The ancient city walls in three cities,
Nanjing City of Jiangsu Province, Xingcheng City of Liaoning Province, and Xi'an City of Shaanxi Province, were list as one unit for
China's ancient city walls of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Another
city, Jingzhou City of Hubei Province was added to the application at
the Forum of Scientific Protection for Ancient City Walls, which
opened on October 12.
According to the forum, China has more than 100 ancient city
walls under protection, most of which were built after the Ming
Dynasty because of the "building high city walls" policy raised by
Zhu Yuanzhang, or the Emperor Hongwu, who founded the Ming Dynasty
(1368-1644).
The ancient wall of Nanjing
City
Nanjing was the capital during the Ming Dynasty when Zhu
Yuanzhang overthrew the Yuan Dynasty in 1368. Nanjing's ancient
city wall, extending for 35.267 kilometers, was built by the first
emperor. There are 25.091 kilometers of the wall still preserved
today. The wall was built with big blue bricks outside and
compacted earth inside. Designers' and superintendents' names and
the producing areas of the bricks were all noted on the wall.
The ancient wall of Xi'an
City
The Xi'an ancient city wall was also built during the Ming
Dynasty. Xi'an was the capital of the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907) and
already had its city wall at that time. The wall rebuilt during the
Ming Dynasty was based on the Tang Dynasty walls. The wall in
Xi'an, extending for 13.74 kilometers, was also built with big blue
bricks outside and compacted earth inside. Designers' and
superintendents' names were noted on the wall, but without the
producing areas of the bricks.
????
The ancient wall of
Xingcheng City
The ancient city wall in Xingcheng City was built in the third
reign of the Emperor Xuande (1428). 3.274 kilometers was protected
well, and the wall was built with big blue bricks outside and rocks
and stones inside.
The ancient wall of
Jingzhou City
The Jingzhou ancient wall was first built in the Three Kingdoms
Period (220 -280) and maintained and rebuilt during the reign of
the Emperor Hongwu (1368 - 1398). Now there is still 11.28
kilometers of protected wall, together with six city gates.
The specialists in the forum said that four cities applying to
be listed in the world heritage together would be more competitive
than individual applications.
At the forum the ancient wall administration departments of 18
cities reached the Declaration on China's Ancient City Walls'
Protection in Nanjing on October 13. The declaration will be the
guideline for all problems related to ancient city walls
protection.
The declaration says protection of ancient city walls should
include all equipment and surrounding environments as well, such as
the city moats, city gates, watchtowers, and the hills where the
walls are situated.
The Nanjing municipal government has set a 50-meter-wide belt
area outside the city wall as protection, and Jingzhou City set the
belt at 200 meters wide.
On the other hand, the declaration clearly forbids all
construction projects of ancient city walls. There was a trend in
the 1950s of dismantling ancient walls and rebuilding them.
Actually the core aim of protection on ancient city walls is to
protect the original look and the rebuilt ones are not the real and
integrate walls. The rebuilding action may also cause the loss of
important historical information of the wall.?
(China.org.cn by Chen Lin October 19, 2007)
