Nanjing’s city wall, built during the early Ming Dynasty (1366–1386 AD) under the founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang (洪武帝), is the longest surviving ancient city wall in the world — a fact that still surprises most visitors. The original perimeter stretched 35.27 km; approximately 25 km survives today, and 15 km of the surviving sections can be walked on top of the wall via pedestrian paths.
Historical Context
Zhu Yuanzhang chose Nanjing as his imperial capital and spent 20 years building its walls. Unlike the neat geometric walls of most Chinese cities, Nanjing’s wall follows the natural contours of the terrain — hugging hills, incorporating lakes and bending around natural ridges. The resulting irregular pentagon shape was strategically astute but architecturally unusual.
The wall required approximately 350 million specially fired bricks. Each brick was stamped with the name of the supervisor responsible for its production — a quality control measure that allowed defective bricks to be traced back to their makers. You can still see these name stamps on surviving bricks.
At its completion, the wall was between 14–21 meters high and 7–10 meters wide at the top. The scale is more apparent standing on it than from below — the top is a broad promenade rather than a narrow walkway.
Key Sections to Walk
Zhonghua Gate (中华门) — Most Complete and Most Important
Zhonghua Gate is not just a gate — it’s a 128-room fortress built within the wall at the southern entrance, designed to trap invaders in a series of courtyards that could be sealed off and attacked from above. It is the most complex surviving defensive gate structure in the world.
The Oubao System: Three inner courtyards with iron-reinforced gates that could be dropped to seal sections off. Defenders in the rooms built into the walls of each courtyard could fire arrows, pour boiling oil or throw rocks down onto any invaders who breached the outer gate.
Hidden soldier rooms: 27 tunnel chambers built into the earthworks, capable of hiding 3,000 soldiers, are preserved and accessible. Walking into these tunnel rooms gives an extraordinary physical sense of the defensive architecture.
Climb to the top: From the gate tower, look south to see the full depth of the fortification and north toward the historic city center.
Entry: ¥50; open 08:30–18:00 (summer)
Taicheng Section (台城) — Most Scenic
The section of wall adjacent to Xuanwu Lake in the northeast of the old city is the most photographed. The wall here curves along the lake edge with water on one side and the trees of the city on the other. Access from Xuanwu Lake Park.
Walking time: 2–3 hours for the full Taicheng section. The path along the top is paved and relatively level.
Zhongshan Gate to Stone City (中山门至石城)
The longest accessible stretch of the wall, incorporating several gate towers and offering panoramic views over both old and new Nanjing. More physically demanding than Taicheng — some sections include significant uphill climbs.
The Wall’s Construction Materials
The bricks are the wall’s defining visual feature. The rich, deep red-brown color comes from the specific clay composition and kiln temperature. Embedded across the entire wall are thousands of bricks with carved inscriptions — the production stamps mentioned earlier. Archaeological teams have catalogued over 12 million brick inscriptions identifying production sites from across the Yangtze River Basin.
Modern conservation has replaced damaged sections with identical-specification bricks made in traditional kilns using the original technique. The difference between 600-year-old original bricks and 20-year-old restoration bricks is visible up close — the original bricks have a slightly different patina and the edges are more rounded by time.
Connecting the Wall Walk to Other Attractions
Xuanwu Lake (玄武湖): The large lake park inside the city wall’s northeastern section is free to enter (weekdays) or ¥15 on weekends. It’s one of the most pleasant city parks in eastern China — five islands connected by causeways, with the wall visible from multiple angles.
Jiming Temple (鸡鸣寺): A Buddhist temple at the corner of the Taicheng section, built on the highest point of the old city with views over both the lake and the city. The temple’s tower appears in the popular view of the wall reflected in Xuanwu Lake.
Purple Mountain (紫金山): East of the wall, the mountain contains the Ming Tombs (明孝陵), Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum (中山陵) and Linggu Pagoda — an ambitious half-day walk from the wall section.
Practical Information
Zhonghua Gate address: No. 1 Zhonghualumen Street, Qinhuai District, Nanjing
Getting there: Metro Line 1 to Zhonghua Gate Station (中华门) — exit directly at the base of the gate.
Taicheng section access: Metro to Xinjiekou, then 20-minute walk; or Didi to Xuanwu Lake East Gate.
Entry fees: Zhonghua Gate ¥50; most other wall sections ¥20–40; some sections are free.
Walking the full 15 km: Best done as a multi-day activity, covering 4–5 km per session and accessing the wall via multiple gate points. Sturdy shoes essential; sun protection in summer.
Photography: Afternoon light from 15:00–17:00 gives the best color on the brick surfaces. Taicheng section reflected in Xuanwu Lake at dawn is the classic Nanjing image.
Standing on the Ming Dynasty city wall in Nanjing, you’re standing on what was once the most powerful military fortification in the world — built to defend a city that was, for a few decades, the capital of the Chinese empire and one of the largest cities on Earth. The bricks underfoot tell 600-year-old stories, and the city that has grown up both inside and outside the wall has changed beyond recognition — except for this extraordinary boundary between the world of the Ming emperors and the world of the present.