13 Famous Walls Around The World (PHOTOS)

Walls have been built since ancient times, to mark borders, protect kingdoms and settlements, or keep out unwanted people. In more recent times, walls have also been built to serve as memorials and structures of art.

Here are 13 walls from around the world, ancient and modern, and famous for their history, cultural or political significance.

 

Have we missed an important, famous or historic wall somewhere in the world? Send us pictures.

Find a picture, click the participate button, add a title and upload your picture

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Great Wall of China, China

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comments(126)

Total comments: 126 | Post a Comment

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Wall

Rank #2  |  Average: 4

Eh. Interesting!

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Comments

[rbenjamin]

10:15 AM on 12/06/2010

I'm no expert, but #17 looks aquaduct-ish to me.

[intptr t]

10:02 AM on 12/06/2010

I was in Ávila just recently; it is really stunning, much more so than in the picture they have included here.

[peter ricci]

08:04 AM on 12/06/2010

Cartagena, Colombia Anyone?

[TStringfellow]

11:40 AM on 12/06/2010

Yes!

[Thaigold]

07:31 AM on 12/06/2010

Face it folks. We really don't like each other. Many wish it were not so. But, many say, it will never change. In this world these differences are being magnified. What a shame.
We are truly ****ed.

[kakbik]

07:22 AM on 12/06/2010

Damascus Wall should have been there too...

[roshni]

07:29 AM on 12/06/2010

Indeed - very interesting with lots of history.

[captcct]

06:57 AM on 12/06/2010

Hadrian's is the most famous. Well actually, the wall around where I live is pretty decent too. lol.

[SilentSolidarity]

04:30 AM on 12/06/2010

It's tragic that nobody knows about the walls of Benin. They were far bigger and longer than the Great Wall of China, but the British colonialists managed to destroy it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walls_of_Benin

The Walls of Benin City is the world's largest man-made structure. Fred Pearce wrote in New Scientist:
"They extend for some 16,000 kilometres in all, in a mosaic of more than 500 interconnected settlement boundaries. They cover 6500 square kilometres and were all dug by the Edo people. In all, they are four times longer than the Great Wall of China, and consumed a hundred times more material than the Great Pyramid of Cheops. They took an estimated 150 million hours of digging to construct, and are perhaps the largest single archaeological phenomenon on the planet.

Our worldview doesn't have space for anything beyond Western and Far Eastern culture which is a shame.

[roshni]

07:29 AM on 12/06/2010

If you have a photo, do post it. Great info - thanks.

[TStringfellow]

11:48 AM on 12/06/2010

How do you post a photo of walls that were torn down at a time when photography was just coming about?

[moose and squirrel]

03:45 AM on 12/06/2010

hello?  The Wall - Pink Floyd

[bigmovieman]

01:16 AM on 12/06/2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRYEWjzpD2Y

0:42 = :D

[clerval]

01:08 AM on 12/06/2010

This is the least exciting headline ever!

[GrownupStewie]

05:40 AM on 12/06/2010

the best color paint to watch dry!!!!

[isaidit]

11:41 PM on 12/05/2010

Walls Ice-cream. Not to be missed.

[Marla Thurman]

11:41 PM on 12/05/2010

Wow, the walls of Ston, Croatia are spectacular.

[radar17]

10:19 PM on 12/05/2010

I think it is still Londonderry last time I checked, not Derry.

[Blow In]

04:30 AM on 12/06/2010

It depends on your political persuasion.. In the Republic it is called Derry and you will be politely corrected if you say Londonderry. It's a nice place and a nice wall, worth a visit if you are in the area.

[Miriam Kivlehan]

12:37 PM on 12/06/2010

'Derry' was so named in the 6th century when a Christian monastery was founded on the hill of 'Doire' to the east of the River Foyle. The word Doire is the Gaelic name for a place of Oak trees. The prominent rocky hill was home to little more than settlement of monasteries until it was destroyed in 1567 during a battle between the Irish and the occupying English. The name Doire became anglicised to Derry by the English who could neither pronounce nor spell the Gaelic language. In 1609 James I of England decided to make this part of Ulster an English colony in order to suppress continued rebellion. The City of London was commissioned with the so-called plantation project. London's guilds and organizations were responsible for financing and founded the Irish Society, which still owns property and rights in Derry and which uses its proceeds for charitable causes. It was these London City Guilds that renamed the county Londonderry.

[olddognewtrick]

09:55 PM on 12/05/2010

Low cost plaster and styrofoam reproductions of all of these famous walls available at Wall-Mart.

[isaidit]

11:42 PM on 12/05/2010

Not done to scale.

[Aelfgifu]

06:20 AM on 12/06/2010

Warning: May contain lead.

[ABQ-Mike]

09:45 PM on 12/05/2010

Sure. The greatest Wall of all. Wall Drug store in Wall South Dakota.