In early China, each city had a fortress-like wall that surrounded the city to keep it safe from invaders. The best preserved 'city-walls' in all of China are the Xi'an City Walls. They're probably the best preserved city walls in the world really.

The Xi'an city walls once completely surrounded the city when they were built hundreds of years ago during the Ming Dynasty. Thus, old Xi'an lies on the inside and the city grew outside the walls as it expanded

Let's climb onto the city walls for a view from the top.

Can you tell which side of the wall faced "outside" the city and which faced "inside"? Remember that they were built to protect Xi'an during the Ming Dynasty - when Xi'an was the Chinese capital city. The low side faces the city, and the high side faces out. Look at the sheer size of this "Wall" with the hight from the above picture and the width from the picture below.

Hey everybody! ...look left!

Look right!

I suppose this is the city-walls equivilant to a light-house at each corner of the wall that surrounds the city. Xi'an has sprawled as a city, to the point where the walls that once surrounded the entire city now only surround the innermost core of Xi'an.

Looking back from where we came...

And now - a view of the city walls, the way our guide intended us to see them - from inside the bus...

Good night Xi'an