In the north of the Chinese capital Beijing, there is a huge, oddly shaped wall, which stretches over China running to the East and West from Beijing. It's the Great Wall of China and is said to be the only thing on Earth clearly visible from the moon. 

The Great Wall has a length of 6350 kilometres and was built over 2000 years ago. One million people took ten years to finish construction on it. The Great Wall was firstly built for defence purposes against the Mongolian people and later offered protection and defence against other foes. Chinese men in that time had no choice but to help build this wall. 

Since the Chinese Qin Dynasty, the Great Wall has been renovated a few times. One major renovation took place in 1368 and took almost 200 years to complete. 

In the west, the Great Wall extends to the Jiayu Pass in Gansu Province, and to the mouth of the Yalu River in Liaoning Province in the east. Many people don't realize this, but the section that lies to the north of Beijing, is only a very small section of the entire Great Wall of China. 

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If you took all the stones the Great Wall is made of,  and made a wall 5 metres in height and 5 metres in width, you'd have a wall which would reach once 
around the equator!

The Great Wall, Beijing