Last year China made a list of sites waiting to apply for the world heritage list. The ancient city walls in three cities, Nanjing City of Jiangsu Province, Xingcheng City of Liaoning Province, and Xi'an City of Shaanxi Province, were list as one unit for China's ancient city walls of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Another city, Jingzhou City of Hubei Province was added to the application at the Forum of Scientific Protection for Ancient City Walls, which opened on October 12.

According to the forum, China has more than 100 ancient city walls under protection, most of which were built after the Ming Dynasty because of the "building high city walls" policy raised by Zhu Yuanzhang, or the Emperor Hongwu, who founded the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

The ancient wall of Nanjing City

Nanjing was the capital during the Ming Dynasty when Zhu Yuanzhang overthrew the Yuan Dynasty in 1368. Nanjing's ancient city wall, extending for 35.267 kilometers, was built by the first emperor. There are 25.091 kilometers of the wall still preserved today. The wall was built with big blue bricks outside and compacted earth inside. Designers' and superintendents' names and the producing areas of the bricks were all noted on the wall.

The ancient wall of Xi'an City

The Xi'an ancient city wall was also built during the Ming Dynasty. Xi'an was the capital of the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907) and already had its city wall at that time. The wall rebuilt during the Ming Dynasty was based on the Tang Dynasty walls. The wall in Xi'an, extending for 13.74 kilometers, was also built with big blue bricks outside and compacted earth inside. Designers' and superintendents' names were noted on the wall, but without the producing areas of the bricks.
    

The ancient wall of Xingcheng City

The ancient city wall in Xingcheng City was built in the third reign of the Emperor Xuande (1428). 3.274 kilometers was protected well, and the wall was built with big blue bricks outside and rocks and stones inside.

The ancient wall of Jingzhou City

The Jingzhou ancient wall was first built in the Three Kingdoms Period (220 -280) and maintained and rebuilt during the reign of the Emperor Hongwu (1368 - 1398). Now there is still 11.28 kilometers of protected wall, together with six city gates.

The specialists in the forum said that four cities applying to be listed in the world heritage together would be more competitive than individual applications.

At the forum the ancient wall administration departments of 18 cities reached the Declaration on China's Ancient City Walls' Protection in Nanjing on October 13. The declaration will be the guideline for all problems related to ancient city walls protection.

The declaration says protection of ancient city walls should include all equipment and surrounding environments as well, such as the city moats, city gates, watchtowers, and the hills where the walls are situated.

The Nanjing municipal government has set a 50-meter-wide belt area outside the city wall as protection, and Jingzhou City set the belt at 200 meters wide.

On the other hand, the declaration clearly forbids all construction projects of ancient city walls. There was a trend in the 1950s of dismantling ancient walls and rebuilding them. Actually the core aim of protection on ancient city walls is to protect the original look and the rebuilt ones are not the real and integrate walls. The rebuilding action may also cause the loss of important historical information of the wall. 

(China.org.cn by Chen Lin October 19, 2007)