How old is the Great Wall of China?
Posted on Feb 24, 2026 / Travel
The history of the Great Wall goes back over 2,000 years, all the way to around the 7th century BC when different states built walls for defense before China was unified. Later, when Qin Shi Huang became the first emperor of China, he connected many of these old walls to create a longer defensive system. After that, different dynasties kept adding to and reinforcing the wall across many centuries. The most famous surviving remains come from the Ming Dynasty, built between the 14th and 17th centuries. That means the parts most tourists see are still about 400–700 years old. But the *idea* of the wall is almost three millennia old, making it one of the oldest large‑scale construction efforts in human history. That long history is part of why it’s such a big deal around the world.
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