Maps: Great Wall Map Version 3

[Bryan]

The Great Wall Forum is proud to announce version 3 of our comprehensive map of the Great Wall of China. This map is packaged as a kmz file for use with Google Earth. You must have Google Earth installed on your computer to view it. You can download and install Google Earth free.

The map is free, but you must comply with the license agreement to use it. Basically, the agreement contains these rules:

• The map is only for personal, non-commercial use.
• You may not copy, redistribute, or modify the map.
• You are strongly urged to help protect and preserve the Great Wall.

The map is a community project. Users are encouraged to contribute additions, corrections, and suggestions. Special thanks to our members chinoook and Kim, who provided the majority of the data and did most of the work in creating this map.

Only forum members can download the map. Guests must register before downloading the attached map.

Please note that this map does not represent all of the data we have generated so far. Certain locations and categories have been omitted for various reasons. Please let us know if you are interested in the complete map.

Please note also that this map is large and contains much detail. Therefore, it may take a long time for it to load in Google Earth. Please be patient and allow time for it to load.

The Great Wall of China map is a work in progress. This release is dated 2009/01/09 (9 January 2009). Please check back regularly for updates as we continually improve the map.

Important note: This thread has been replaced by Version 4 of the Great Wall Forum map of the Great Wall of China.

[lsanderson]

Each map gets better than the one before it. I have never found a more detailed map of the great wall of china. But I have one question. Why does it only have the ming dynasty? I know you guys have been to dunhuang, and the great wall is clearly visible in google earth to the west of yumenguan. Why doesn't this map have the han dynasty and other dynasty maps which are found on so many other great wall maps?

[Bryan]

Originally Posted by lsanderson

Each map gets better than the one before it. I have never found a more detailed map of the great wall of china. But I have one question. Why does it only have the ming dynasty? I know you guys have been to dunhuang, and the great wall is clearly visible in google earth to the west of yumenguan. Why doesn't this map have the han dynasty and other dynasty maps which are found on so many other great wall maps?

That's a good question. The map is a collaboration of four members and I will try to answer for all of us, although anyone is of course welcome to comment and I hope some of the others will.

All of the contributors to the map agreed long ago that we would only release to the public the information that we could unanimously agree upon. While presenting a quality map is our goal, preservation and protection of the Great Wall is also very important to us. Some of us have identified Great Wall locations (in person, on Google Earth, and by other means) that are not well known and could possibly be harmed by the additional tourism that could come from disclosing their location.

My personal opinion is that we should release all of the information that we have available, because very little of the Great Wall is known only to us anyway. Due to the wealth of information available on the Internet, it's only a matter of time before all of the Great Wall is mapped in detail and released to the public. So, it may as well be here. I think that most people who are enthusiastic enough to seek out the Great Wall in remote, relatively unknown areas are going to agree with our concern about protection and would be more likely to help it than to harm it. However, I have not been able to get all of the collaborators to agree with me and so for now we are only releasing the Ming Great Wall, and only relatively well-known parts of it at that.

We do have a more detailed, private map, which we share with people who contribute significantly to our efforts to improve the map.

Hopefully the day will come when we can release all of our map to the public.

[lsanderson]

Bryan thanks for your response. I'm sure the great wall needs to be protected but I don't think you are helping anything by only releasing a partial map.

[chinoook]

Originally Posted by lsanderson

Bryan thanks for your response. I'm sure the great wall needs to be protected but I don't think you are helping anything by only releasing a partial map.

Another reason we don't want to show everything we know yet is that we might want to publish it somewhere else. As you probably know scientific data may not be published before.


-chinoook

[Shanghai Guy]

I was in Dunhuang a couple of times before. One of those trips I went out to the Jade Gate and beyond to see the 'wall'. What is left is mostly about 2 meters tall made of alternate layers of mud and straw. Very interesting stuff, and I loved it there, so bizarre. Anyway, while in Dunhuang I saw some maps suggesting that these were from a different era and were part of a whole series of walls in this area. Not sure if you would include it in the Great Wall project or not, not a historian, but the whole topic is quite complicated with huge missing pieces of history. By the way, if you get out to this 'western end of the wall' the most amazing thing to see is Mogao Ku, the largest repository of Chinese Buddhist art in the world. Incredible.
cheers.

[Bryan]

Originally Posted by Shanghai Guy

I was in Dunhuang a couple of times before. One of those trips I went out to the Jade Gate and beyond to see the 'wall'. What is left is mostly about 2 meters tall made of alternate layers of mud and straw. Very interesting stuff, and I loved it there, so bizarre. Anyway, while in Dunhuang I saw some maps suggesting that these were from a different era and were part of a whole series of walls in this area. Not sure if you would include it in the Great Wall project or not, not a historian, but the whole topic is quite complicated with huge missing pieces of history. By the way, if you get out to this 'western end of the wall' the most amazing thing to see is Mogao Ku, the largest repository of Chinese Buddhist art in the world. Incredible.
cheers.

Hi, Shanghai Guy! A few of our members have been to Dunhuang. I agree, it's bizarre! The walls and other structures in this area are from the Han Dynasty. Check out our Dunhuang forum — http://www.greatwallforum.com/forum/dunhuang/

[FreddyMusic]

I use this map GPS with one addtional key points proposed by Kim. totally 111 points.
The wall spanning tree is reaching over 6'100 km. It's close to the history record 6'400 km.

So the good news is great wall is still there, 111 points is a kind of scientific proof.
however, as we are keep lost the GPS points one by one, the wall would be disappear, finally.



http://e.simwe.com/150521/viewspace-13479

[chinoook]

Originally Posted by FreddyMusic

I use this map GPS points. The wall spanning tree is reaching over 6'100 km.

It's close to the history record.

... and it would be exceeded by far if you took all the Han, Qin, Jin Great Wall sections ...


-chinoook

[FreddyMusic]

I use all existing GPS points, so it can be Ming, Han or other years walls.

The result is based on mathematics assumption, that all the walls were connected at least. I recover what it was with the most possibility.

Meanwhile, I understand some connection are actually not there, if we compare the map with Google earth.