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Ever-increasing visitor numbers have prompted authorities  in Beijing to ready more sections of the Great Wall of China for tourists.

The capital plans to add the Huanghuacheng and Hefangkou  sections of the Wall to the existing four parts of the fortification open to the  public following necessary repairs and renovations.

Beijing Cultural Relics Bureau (BCRB) chief Kong Fanzhi  said the already opened Mutianyu and Badaling sections of the Great Wall would  also be extended to cater for burgeoning visitor numbers, China Daily reported.

Mr Kong said the initiatives aimed to “better protect”  the Great Wall by “diverting visitors and reducing the load” on the parts of  the fortification currently open to tourists.

According to the bureau chief, Beijing has invested millions of yuan into the repair of the Wall,  which he says is buckling under the weight of mass domestic and international  tourism, particularly on weekends and during holidays.

Making matters worse, a rising number of tourists are climbing  parts of the Great Wall closed off to the public, causing further damage to the  Chinese icon.

Despite this burden, BCRB Department of Preservation  director Wang Yuwei said most of the 60 kilometers of the Great Wall in the  capital had been kept in “good condition”.

No date has been set for the opening of the new sections,  the bureau said.

Meanwhile, it has been revealed that the Great Wall of China is nearly two and a half times the length it was widely believed to have been.

According to local media, in its recent survey report,  the State Administration of Cultural Heritage deemed the wall to be 21,296  kilometres (13,233 miles) – much longer than the previously estimated 8,852 kilometres  (5,500 miles).

Yan Jianmin,  office director of the China Great Wall Society, said the sizable  discrepancy had arisen as previous estimations had only referred to Great Walls  built during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

“But this new measure includes Great Walls built in all dynasties,” he  said.

In related news, archaeologists working on the latest dig  at the site of the  Terracotta  Warriors in Xi’an have said the project has unearthed more than 300  important artefacts including tools, weapons, parts of chariots, twelve pottery  horses and most notably, around 120 more warriors.

The third dig to take place in the museum’s number one pit in Xi’an,  capital of Northwest China’s Shaanxi province, began in 2009.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2012 at 4:38 PM and is filed under Best Hotels, Land of Culture, Nature & Travel, Travel & Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.