New City Wall Park to Open Soon

As part of the effort to protect Beijing's historical relics, the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) City Wall Relics Park will open to the public next year.

The ancient city wall park follows the September opening of the Huangchenggen Relics Park, also known as the Imperial City Wall Relics Park, in downtown Beijing.

The 1-kilometre long Ming Dynasty city wall relics is said to be the last existing part of the third ring of the ancient city wall, which stretches from Chongwenmen to Dongbian-men in eastern Beijing.

To make way for the park covering 13 hectares of land, however, residents in 1,800 households will have to leave.

The park is estimated to cost a whopping 850 million yuan (US$102 million) to build, a large portion of which is being used to compensate residents who had to move, according to city officials.

More than 120,000 ancient city wall bricks have been collected in the past three years to rebuild the section of the city wall, which dates back to the 14th century.

Beijing was once surrounded by four rings of city walls: the Forbidden City wall, the Imperial City wall, the inner city wall and the outer city wall.

Broad ring roads were built in the 1950s and 1960s, but the third and fourth rings of the city wall had to be sacrificed.

(China Daily November 22, 2001)