Xi'an
City Walls
 The
City Wall of Xi'an is just at the center
of Xi'an municipality, in a rectangular
shape and with the length from east to west
a little longer than that from south to
north. The perimeter of the city wall is
11.9 kilometers, with four gates constructed
in the four directions of east, south, west
and north. The construction system of the
city gates is in a four-rampart and 12-gate
style. The Northern City Gate is called
Anyuan Gate, the Southern City Gate is called
Yong'an Gate, the West City Gate is called
Anding Gate, and the East City Gate is called
Changle Gate. It was rebuilt and extended
on the base of the original Tang Dynasty
Palace Wall from the seventh year to the
eleventh year of Hongwu in Ming Dynasty
(from 1374 to 1378 AD). It has a history
of 600 years up to now and it is also the
most large, solid and complete city wall
which has survived through the long history
in China.
 Xi'an
is called Chang'an in Chinese history. Chang'an,
as an ancient organizational capital city,
has a history of over 3,000 (called Haojing
in Zhou Dynasty, Xianyang in Qin Dynasty
and Chang'an after Han Dynasty up to the
time before the Ming Dynasty). It was the
Tang Empire that set its capital at the
present site of Xi'an, with a perimeter
of 35 kilometers long city wall. Such a
large-scale city wall construction is rarely
found in the world history. Therefore, it
is regarded as one of the four ancient capital
cities together with the Italian city "Rome",
"Athens" of Greece and "Cairo"
of Egypt. The Tang City Wall was ruined
in a war at the beginning of the 10th century
AD. At the end of Tang Dynasty, in the first
year of Tian You Period (904 AD), the city
governor Hanjian of the security army which
settled in Chang'an rebuilt the city wall
on the base of the inner city wall of the
Tang Dynasty Imperial Palace of the Tang
Chang'an city. This is the original shape
of the present city wall. In the second
year of Hong Wu in the Ming Dynasty, the
founder of Ming Dynasty Zhu Yuanzhang occupied
"Fengyuanlu" (the new city rebuilt
by Hanjian) and changde the name of "Fengyuanlu"
into "Chang'an Fu", hence the
name "Chang'an" has been used
ever since. Meanwhile, he nominated his
second son Zhushuang as "King Qin"
to govern this area, and ordered an inner
city "King Qin's Palace" ("New
city" where the Shaanxi Provincial
government is now located) built inside
the city of Xi'an. In the seventh year of
Hongwu Period (1370 AD), Zhushuang started
to widen and make higher the city wall rebuilt
by Hanjian, and extended the northern city
wall and the eastern city wall outwards
in a degree of one-third, thus formed the
present scale of the city wall.
 The
city wall of Xi'an is 12 meters high, 15
meters wide on the top and 18 meters at
the bottom, with battlements of 1.65 meters
high. Laid on the top are three layers of
bricks, which make it convenient for drainage.
In the four directions, there is a city
gate tower and arrow tower each. Each city
gate tower has 3 ramparts and 3 entrances,
which make up 4 inner cities (or compounds).
In front of each inner city (or compounds),
there is a Zhalou (rampart with a suspense
bridge. The three ramparts standing in a
line, with upturned eaves up into the sky,
make up a magnificent scene. The surrounding
moat just outside the city wall makes it
imregnable.
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