Xian Ancient City Wall-Ride a Bicyle on it to experience the integrated Close-knit Military Defense System of Ancient China and get bird's eyes view of Xi'an
My first impression about Xi'an is the majestic Ancient City Wall surrounds the Xian city.
 
 
The City Wall can be traced back to 1400 years ago but the current remains has a history of more than 600 years and rebuilt in Ming Dynasty (1374 AD-1378 AD) as military defense system based on the city wall of Tang Dynasty structures. The Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang (1st Emperor of Ming Dynasty) took the strategy of "Build High Defense Wall and Store sufficient Subsistence before taking power" and aimed on defender strategy by building the city wall in Xi'an. With this strategy, the City Wall of Xian features heavily THICK. You can see that the thickness of the ancient city wall is much thicker than the height of it, even it allows the drill of cavalvy on the wall roof.
 
As one of the biggest ancient integrated close-knit Military Defense System remained in current China, the City Wall of Xian boasts 12 meters in height, 18 meters in width at bottom, 15 meters in width on the top and 7.39 miles (11.9 km) in length. The whole wall system consists of moat, drawbridge, ramparts, embrasure towers, the main tower, turrets, watchtowers, parapets and crenels.
There are 4 City Gates of the wall located in the east, west, north and south of the city and each gate has a structure of Embrasure Tower for defense, Ramparts for hanging drawbridge and the Main Tower for the final entrance of the city.
 
Stepping on the city wall is not only the way to find out the relic. You may rent a tandem bicycle and take about 1 hour to ride around the Xian inner city along the ancient city wall. Alternatively, you could hire a traditional rickshaw for half an hour tour along the city wall.
 
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