CHINESE MEGASTRUCTURES by Andrew Tan Delli Cicchi

The Great Wall of China Fact File Length: 6400 – 6700 kilometres Height: avg 7 metres Made: Around 3 centuries BC Made of: Compacted earth and stones Created by: the Qin, Han and Ming dynasties Interesting Fact: There are about 25,000 towers and 15,000 outposts along the Great Wall

The Great Wall of China The Great Wall of China is one of the greatest wonders of the ancient world, an international symbol of China’s heritage and culture It covers over 6500 kms, running through all extremes of nature from the east to west of China The Great wall was in fact at first several individual walls for protection, before being combined into one massive wall by Emperor Qin Shihuang It took over 3 million people to build the wall, with 1 million dying while construction

Forbidden City Fact File Area: 74 hectares Made: 1407 - 1420 Location: central Beijing Created by: Ming dynasty (3rd emperor) Interesting Fact: The walls surrounding the palace are made out of bricks of glutinous rice and white lime and cement of glutinous rice and egg white

Forbidden City It took a million workers including 100,000 artisans seven years of hard labour to build Forbidden City Forbidden City is the largest palace complex in the world, with a six metre deep moat, ten metre walls and 9999 rooms It was the imperial palace for the Ming and Qing dynasties, and is mostly painted yellow as this was the colour of royalty Forbidden City is divided into 2 parts; the first southern part (outer court)for the emperor to address the nation and the northern (inner court) for him and his family to live

Three Gorges Dam Fact File Length: 2335 metres Width: 1.3 miles bank to bank Height: 610 feet high Made: Still in construction Made of: Cement Location: On the Yangtze river Energy created: The dam will create as much power as 15 nuclear power plants – and a third of China’s energy consumption

Three Gorges Dam The project is expected to finish in 2009 at a cost of 30 billion US dollars The Three Gorges Dam was created to produce masses of energy for China, and will stop the annual flooding of the Yellow River It is the world’s largest dam, and the reservoir created by it runs for 360 miles It is a central point for controversy; 1.5 million people will be made homeless by the dam – 13 cities, 140 towns and 1300 villages will be flooded by the reservoir

Bibliography China Travel Guide, retrieved 25 September 2008, www.travelchinaguide.com/china_great_wall/ China Travel Guide, retrieved 24 September 2008, http://www.travelchinaguide.com/cityguides/beijing/forbidden.htm International Rivers, retrieved 23 September 2008,http://www.internationalrivers.org/en/china/three-gorges-dam