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http://badaling.gov.cn/english/history/history.htm
Badaling. The Badaling Great Wall is located in Yanqing County, over 60 kilometers to the northwest of Beijing. It was built on the Jundu Mountain ridge that is 600-1000 meters above sea level. It has been a crucial strategic place from ancient times. Badaling is the outer pass of Juyongguan. Since it is to the north of Juyongguan, it is also called ‘the Northern Pass’. The place connects Beijing in the south, Yanqing in the north, Xuanhua, Zhangjiakou and Datong in the west, hence the name of Badaling (the ridge extending in all directions).
Badaling was at a narrow mountain gap of the precipitous Jundu Mountain and the northern commanding height of the pass trench of 20 kilometers. The pass city has two pass gates. The western gate is called ‘the lock of the northern’. The eastern gate is called ‘the outer town of Juyong’. There is an old saying that the strategic place of Juyong is not at the pass city but at Badaling. The distance between the two pass gates is 63.9 meters. The pass gates were built with bricks and stones. On the arched door there is a platform that is connected with the rampart. On the south and north side of the platform there is a gap respectively, and on the four sides of the platform there are brick battlements. Before the Badaling expressway had been opened, the Beijing-Zhangjiakou highway got across the city gate and was the gorge. From the pass gate the Badaling Great Wall runs majestically northward and southward along the mountain. Today we still can enjoy our ancestor’s ‘Natural Barrier’ carved out on the Badaling cliff.
The Badaling Great Wall was first built in 1505, and with repairs and reinforcements for many times it was finally completed in 1582. The whole construction lasts nearly 80 years. The ramparts were built with granite slabs, the battlement walls with gray bricks. The slabs are 0.5 meters wide, 0.4 meters high and 0.8 to 1 meters long. The longest slabs are 3.1 meters in length and 1.5 to 1.7 tons in weight. The average height of the rampart is 6 to 9 meters and in some sections 14 meters. The rampart base is 6.5 to 7.5 meters thick. The top is 4.5 to 5.8 meters wide. 5 horses or 10 people can walk on the rampart in parallel.
The Badaling Great Wall is the earliest opened section of the Great Wall, and is a most famous tourist resorts in the world. In 1987 on behalf of the whole Great Wall, the section received the ‘World’s Cultural Heritage’ certificate awarded by UNESCO. The certificate has been cherished in the Chinese Great Wall Museum. Up to now, more than 400 chiefs of states all over the world have visited the Badaling Great Wall.
