The Ancient City Wall of Jingjiang Prefecture in Guilin

The Ancient City Wall of Jingjiang Prefecture in Guilin

The Ancient City Wall of Jingjiang Prefecture in Guilin is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

Over seven hundred years ago, Jingjiang Prefecture (Guilin) undertook an unprecedented large-scale city wall construction project to defend against the advancing Mongol forces. This massive undertaking spanned fourteen years and was overseen by four different supervisors. The expanded city wall started from Tiefeng Mountain and Parrot Mountain in the north, extended southward along Baoji Mountain to the southern end of Ronghu Lake near Yiwu Road, then turned eastward to connect with the Li River, then curved around to Fubo Mountain and Diecai Mountain before linking back to Tiefeng Mountain. The total length exceeded 6,000 meters, with walls ranging from 6 to 9 meters in height. The Jingjiang Prefecture city walls were built along the contours of the mountains, using the hills as natural barriers and the river as a defensive moat. This flexible and adaptive construction technique embodied the military fortification principles of "using water as defense, adapting to local conditions, and leveraging natural advantages for strategic defense." Its three-dimensional depth, combination of solid and open structures, and predominantly defensive layout represented the highest level of military fortress engineering at the time.

In October 2019, the State Council announced the eighth list of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units, and the Jingjiang Prefecture city wall was included.

Further reading:

· Eighth Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units