Construction of the first pieces was during the Zhou Dynasty in 7th century BC. At the time, China was divided into several states, and individual states built walls to aid defense.
The Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC) conquered six other dynasties and unified China. A mass construction of the wall began, and several existing pieces were joined. The project joined the labors of 300,000 soldiers and one million civilians.
About 1,000,000 people perished while working on the Great Wall. The Chinese people refer to the wall as "the longest cemetery in the world."
The latest stretch, completed during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), measures more than 3,500 miles, making it the longest man-made structure in the world. The length of all the walls built over time reaches an astonishing 31,070 miles, greater than the Earth's circumference of 24,854 miles.
Popular folklore pertaining to the Great Wall includes the tale of a dragon that walked along the course of the wall, giving workers a direction to follow in his tracks. Another narrative tells the story of Meng Jiang Nu, a widow of a farmer killed while forced to labor on the wall. She wept incessantly until her tears collapsed the wall, allowing her to find her late husband's bones for a proper burial.
The Han Dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD) stretched the Great Wall to its longest point. Spanning east to west from Liaodao to Lop Nur, the wall reached nearly 5,000 miles. Parts of the wall have eroded, and the longest surviving stretch is that of the Ming Dynasty.
Soldiers guarding the wall were bribed by Manchu forces in 1644. The Ming Dynasty was defeated, and construction of the Great Wall ceased. The People's Republic of China opened it as a tourist attraction in the 1950s.
