City Wall

The Xi'an City Wall is not only the most complete city wall that has survived in China, but it's also one of the largest and most complete ancient military systems of defense in the world. The city walls here were actually built on the fortifications of the Tang Forbidden City. The military defense facilities here including the city wall, city moat, drawbridges, watchtowers, corner towers, parapet walls and gate towers once made up a complete city defense system.

The construction of the City Wall of Xi'an was initiated by Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, who was in regime between 1370 and 1378 AD. The Ming Xi'an City is in the shape of a rectangle and it covers an area of 11, 5 square Km. The circumference of the city wall is 13, 49 kilometers long. On each side of the city wall there is a gate comprising three multistoried towers, i.e. the gate tower, arrow-shooting tower and the drawbridge tower, which look huge and magnificent. The city wall is 1é meters high and 15 meters wide on the top. On the city wall there is a range of outward parapets interrupted by as many as 5984 crenels, and there are altogether protruding ramparts. On each of the 4 corners of the city wall there is a watch tower. The city wall is surrounded by a moat, which is 18 meters wide and 6 meters deep.