Ming City Wall Ruins Park

Lonely Planet review

Topped with saplings, trees and a healthy head of vegetation, the last surviving slice of the Ming Inner City Wall (originally 40km in length) runs along the length of the northern flank of Chongwenmen Dongdajie, attached to a slender and pleasant strip of park. Levelled in the 1950s to facilitate transport and compromise the legacies of earlier dynasties, the city wall is perhaps Běijīng's most conspicuous chunk of lost heritage.

The park runs all the way from the former site of Chongwen Men (Chongwen Gate; one of the nine gates of the inner city wall) to the Southeast Corner Watchtower. You can walk the park's length, taking in its higgledy-piggledy contours and examining the interior layers of stone in parts of the wall that have collapsed.

The restored sections run for around 2km, interrupted every 80m with buttresses ( dun tai ). The most interesting sections of wall are those closer to their original, more dilapidated state and some of the bricks come complete with bullet holes.

You can hunt down a further section of original, collapsing wall if you follow Jianguomen Nandajie north of the Southeast Corner Watchtower. The dishevelled wall runs to your left as you walk north up Jianguomen Nandajie. Take a left onto Beijingzhan Dongjie where you can see the wall come to a halt as it meets the pavement.