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The perimeter of this square city is 6.4
kilometers long and the city wall is the earliest and largest intact
city wall in China. The one that stands now was built early in the
Ming Dynasty and is 12 meters high with an average width of five
meters Its body is rammed earth strengthened with a covering of
bricks. There are crenels, a water drainage system and the top is
floored with bricks. Outside the city wall there is a moat four
meters wide and four meters deep. The city has six gates, twoon
the east wall and two on the west and one on the south and one on
the north. All the gales project outwards and have two doors each.
The city has resulted in the name of "Turtle City" with
the two gates on the south and north representing the head and tail
of the head and tail of the turtle and four gates on the east and
west as the four legs. The two doors on the south or on the north
stand opposite to each other, like the head of the turtle extending
out and two wells just beyond southern gate are like a turtle's
two eyes. The outer door of the north gate turns east like the tail
of a turtle turned to the right. There is a tower at each gate and
seven-meter-high towers at each corner. Along the wall there are
platforms 50 meters apart, 3,000 crenels on the outer wall and 72
watchtowers.
The streets, old government offices, shops
and residential houses inside the city retain their original styles
and shapes and are a model for research on a county town seat of
the Ming Dynasty. The city is under national protection.
Included in the UNESCO world heritage list
in 1997.
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