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Northern Shanxi Province #

Northern Shanxi Province
Image courtesy of NASA., under PD
An area in northern Shanxi Province imaged on 9 January 2001. The low sun angle and light snow cover highlight a section of the Great Wall, visible as a black line snaking diagonally through the image from lower left to upper right.

The Great Wall (actually a series of walls) is over 2,000 years old and was built over a period of 1,000 years. Stretching 8,850 km (5,500 mi) from Korea to the Gobi Desert, it was built to protect China from northern marauders.