Ruins of the Guangzhou City Wall

Ruins of the Guangzhou City Wall

The ruins of the Guangzhou City Wall is a cultural tourism attraction.

The ruins of the city wall are located on Zhongshan 5th Road in Guangzhou. They date back to the Eastern Han Dynasty through the Southern Dynasties period. Two excavations were carried out between 1996 and 1998, covering an area of 300 square meters. A section of the wall, 16 meters long and oriented from north to south, was unearthed. It was originally built during the Eastern Han Dynasty and later expanded and maintained during the Jin and Southern Dynasties. The Eastern Han section of the wall was constructed as an earthen rampart on a hillside, with a well-preserved base. It was later modified in subsequent periods. The remaining section is 5 meters wide at the top and 1.85 meters high, built with 19 layers of rammed earth, each layer separated by a mat of grass stems. A large quantity of Han dynasty roof tiles and pottery fragments were found in the rammed earth layers. During the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the original Eastern Han wall was used as the core, and the structure was widened, reinforced with rammed earth, and faced with bricks laid in a slightly inward sloping pattern. The surviving wall is 7.6 meters wide at the top, 8.8 meters wide at the base, and 1.4 meters high. Blue-glazed ceramic bowl and jar fragments were found in these layers. Bricks at the foundation of the outer wall bear an inscription reading “Taiyuan 11th Year…,” confirming that this section was built during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. During the Southern Dynasties, the Jin-era wall was expanded on both sides by adding layers of earth, and the walls were further faced with bricks. The expanded section reached a width of 21 meters and a surviving height of 1.5 meters. A barbican structure was discovered on the western side, measuring 9.1 meters from north to south, 7.3 meters wide on the northern end, and 8.1 meters wide on the southern end, built using the same construction technique as the main wall. Blue-glazed bowls and dark-glazed jars were among the artifacts unearthed. To the west and east of the Southern Dynasties wall section, remnants of road surfaces and pools dating back to the Tang and Song dynasties, respectively, were also found. This section of the wall integrates structures from three different historical periods, with a continuous usage spanning over 500 years—an extremely rare occurrence in China.