Nanjing City Walls
The city wall of Nanjing (南京市 城墙, Nanjing chengqiang ) was built between 1366 and 1386 under the rule of the first Ming emperor Zhu Yuanzhang and, with its original length of more than 35 kilometers, is now considered to be the longest preserved city wall in the world.
course
Unlike the city walls of Beijing or Xi'an , which were classically laid out at right angles, the Nanjing Wall followed the topography of the city. In the north-west it reached up to just before the banks of the Yangtze and enclosed the lion's hill, in the north-east it led along the bank of the Xuanwu Lake, in the east it came up against the foothills of the Goldpurpurberg, and from there followed the course of an older one that already existed City wall.
Initially 13 city gates were planned, by the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1911 there were 18, later more gates were added or parts of the wall were broken. The city wall was part of a system of four wall rings that were supposed to defend (1) the imperial palace, (2) the imperial city (3) the city of Nanjing (4) the surrounding area. This structure was later imitated in Beijing (" Forbidden City ") when subsequent Ming emperors moved the capital to the north. Only a few remains of the remaining three walls of Nanjing remain, but their course can still be seen in the city's layout to this day.