Great Wall of China Great Wall of China The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications made of stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials, generally built along an east-to-west line across the historical northern borders of China to protect the Chinese states and empires against the raids and invasions of the various nomadic groups of the Eurasian Steppe with an eye to expansion. Several walls were being built as early as the 7th century BC; these, later joined together and made bigger and stronger, are collectively referred to as the Great Wall. Especially famous is the wall built in 220–206
History of the Great Wall of China brought back the first reports of the Wall to the West, European scholars were puzzled that Marco Polo had not mentioned the presumably perennial "Great Wall" in his "Travels". Some 17th-century scholars reasoned that the Wall must have been built in the Ming dynasty, after Marco Polo's departure. This view was soon replaced by another that argued, against Polo's own account, that the Venetian merchant had come to China from the south and so did not come into contact with the Wall. Thus, Father Martino Martini's mistaken claim that the Wall had "lasted right up to the present time without