Long Wall of Ten Thousand Li China

Known to the Chinese as the 'Long Wall of Ten Thousand Li', the formidable defensive structures built to ward off invasion of the Celestial Empire by barbarians is called the Great Wall or the Wall of China by Europeans. The principle of these extraordinary fortifications goes back to the Chunqiu period (722-481 BC) and to the Warring States period (453-221 BC).The construction of certain walls can be explained by feudal conflicts, such as that built by the Wei in 408 BC to defend their kingdom against the Qin. Its vestiges, conserved in the centre of China, antedate by many years the walls built by the Kingdoms of Qin, Zhao and Yan against the northern barbarians around 300 BC. Beginning in 220 BC, Qin Shi Huang, the founder of the Empire of the Ten Thousand Generations, undertook to restore and link up the separate sections of the Great Wall which had been built in the 3rd century BC, or perhaps even earlier, and which stretched from the region of the Ordos to Manchuria.

Continent: Asia

Country: China

Category: Cultural

Criterion: (I)(II) (III) (IV) (VI)

Date of Inscription: 1987

The first cohesive defence system

Towards the west, he had extended the fortifications, the first cohesive defence system of which significant vestiges still remain in the valley of the Huanghe all the way to Lanzhou shortly before the accession of the Han dynasty (206 BC). During their reign the Great Wall was extended even further, and under the emperor Wudi (140-87 BC) it spanned approximately 6,000 km between Dunhuang in the west and the Bohai Sea in the east. The danger of incursion along the northern Chinese border by the federated Mongols, Turks and Tunguz of the Empire of the Xiongnu, the first empire of the steppes, made a defence policy more necessary than ever. After the downfall of the Han dynasty (AD 220), the Great Wall entered its medieval phase. Construction and maintenance works were halted; China at that time enjoyed such great military power that the need for a defence policy was no longer felt.

It was the Ming Emperors (1368-1644) who, after the long period of conflict that ended with the expulsion of the Mongols, revived the tradition begun by Qin Shi Huang. During the Ming dynasty, 5,650 km of wall were built. To defend the northern frontier, the Wall was divided into nine Zhen, military districts rather than garrisons. At strategic points, fortresses were built to defend the towns, passes, or fords. The passageways running along the top of the wall made it possible to move troops rapidly and for imperial couriers to travel. Two symbolic monuments still proudly stand at either end of the wall - the First Door under Heaven at Shanhaiguan, located at the wall's eastern end, and the Last Door under Heaven at Jiayuguan, which, as part of the fortress entirely restored after 1949, marks its north-western end.

The Great Wall Of China

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This complex and diachronic cultural property is an outstanding and unique example of a military architectural ensemble which served a single strategic purpose for 2,000 years, but whose construction history illustrates successive advances in defence techniques and adaptation to changing political contexts. The purpose of The Great Wall was to protect China from outside aggression, but also to preserve its culture from the customs of foreign barbarians. Because its construction implied suffering, it is one of the essential references in Chinese literature.

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The Great Wall of the Ming is, not only because of the ambitious character of the undertaking but also the perfection of its construction, a masterpiece. The wall constitutes, on the vast scale of a continent, a perfect example of architecture integrated into the landscape. During the Chunqiu period, the Chinese imposed their models of construction and organization of space in building the defence works along the northern frontier. The spread of Sinicism was accentuated by the population transfers necessitated by the Great Wall.

That the great walls bear exceptional testimony to the civilizations of ancient China is illustrated as much by the tamped-earth sections of fortifications dating from the Western Han that are conserved in Gansu Province as by the admirable and universally acclaimed masonry of the Ming period.

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Mountain Wonder Machu Picchu Peru

Mountain Wonder Machu Picchu bears, with Cuzco and the other archaeological sites of the valley of the Urubamba (Ollantautaybo, Runcuracay, Sayacmarca, Phuyupamarca, Huiñay Huayna, Intipucu, etc.) a unique testimony to the Inca civilization. Cuzco and the old villages still retain traces of land occupation from the Inca Empire to preserve, in a more global manner, an archaeological heritage which has become susceptible to the effects of urbanization. Furthermore, Macchu Picchu is an outstanding example of man's interaction with his natural environment.

Continent: South America

Country: Peru

Category: Mixed Heritage

Criterion: (I) (III) (VII) (IX)

Date of Inscription: 1983

Amazing urban creation Machu Picchu

Standing 2,430 m above sea level, in the midst of a tropical mountain forest in an extraordinarily beautiful setting, Machu Picchu was probably the most amazing urban creation of the Inca Empire at its height. Its giant walls, terraces and ramps seem as if they have been cut naturally in the continuous rock escarpments. The natural setting, on the eastern slopes of the Andes, encompasses the upper Amazon basin with its rich diversity of flora and fauna.

Machu Picchu covers 32,500 ha in some of the scenically most attractive mountainous territory of the Peruvian Andes. As the last stronghold of the Incas and of superb architectural and archaeological importance, Machu Picchu is one of the most important cultural sites in Latin America; the stonework of the site remains as one of the world's great examples of the use of a natural raw material to provide outstanding architecture which is totally appropriate to the surroundings. The surrounding valleys have been cultivated continuously for well over 1,000 years, providing one of the world's greatest examples of a productive man-land relationship; the people living around Machu Picchu continue a way of life which closely resembles that of their Inca ancestors, being based on potatoes, maize and llamas.

Mountain Wonder Machu Picchu

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Machu Picchu also provides a secure habitat for several endangered species, notably the spectacled bear, one of the most interesting species in the area. Others animals include: dwarf brocket, the otter, long-tailed weasel, pampas cat and the vulnerable ocelot, boa, the Andean cock of the rock, and the Andean condor.

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The natural vegetation is of humid and very humid lower montane forest of the subtropical region, mainly with genera and ferns of the Cyathea and palms.Set on the vertiginous site of a granite mountain sculpted by erosion and dominating a meander in the Rio Urubamba, Machu Picchu is a world renowned archaeological site. The construction of this amazing city, set out according to a very rigorous plan, comprises one of the most spectacular creations of the Inca Empire.

It appears to date from the period of the two great Incas, Pachacutec Inca Yupanqui (1438-71) and Tupac Inca Yupanqui (1472-93). The function of this city situated at least 100 km from the capital, Cuzco, has not been formulated which are not verifiable given the absence of written documentation and sufficiently explicit material evidence.

Without making a judgement as to their purpose, several quite individual quarters may be noted in the ruins of Machu Picchu: a quarter 'of the Farmers' near the colossal terraces whose slopes were cultivated and transformed into hanging gardens; an 'industrial' quarter; a 'royal' quarter and a 'religious' quarter.

Inca architecture reveals itself here in all of its force with the titanic earthen works which multiplied the platforms, levelled the rocky relief, constructed ramps and stairways and literally sculpted the mountain whose cyclopean constructions appear to be a prolongation of nature.

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