The Great Wall of China

The Great Wall is not a wall. It is a network of walls, trenches, natural barriers and watchtowers built and rebuilt across two thousand years by states that mostly did not think of themselves as continuing one another's work. That distinction matters for the step count, because the length depends entirely on which of those things you decide to count.

How long it actually is

The figure most often cited comes from a five-year archaeological survey published by China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage in 2012, which put the total length of all identified Great Wall constructions at 21,196 kilometres — about 13,171 miles. That survey counted everything: walls from multiple dynasties, ditches, natural defensive features incorporated into the line, and border fortifications, much of it no longer standing.

The Ming-dynasty wall alone, which is the masonry structure that appears in almost every photograph, was measured in an earlier survey at 8,851 kilometres — about 5,500 miles. That is the number to use if you mean the wall people imagine.

The step count

At an average adult walking stride of about 0.75 metres, 21,196 kilometres works out to roughly 28.3 million steps. The Ming wall alone is about 11.8 million.

Both figures are optimistic, and significantly so. The wall follows ridgelines by design — the whole point was to hold high ground — and the surviving sections are famous for gradients steep enough to require hands. At Jinshanling and Simatai, sections exceed 45 degrees, and stairs on some stretches have risers over 40 centimetres. Uphill walking on stairs of that height shortens effective stride dramatically. A more realistic estimate applies a 25 to 40 per cent penalty, which puts the true count for the full network somewhere between 35 and 40 million steps.

How long it would take

Pace	Ming wall (5,500 mi)	Full network (13,171 mi)
10,000 steps/day	3.2 years	7.8 years
20,000 steps/day	1.6 years	3.9 years
30,000 steps/day	1.1 years	2.6 years

Those numbers assume you walk every single day without rest, which nobody does, and that the wall is continuous, which it is not. Substantial portions have collapsed, been quarried for building material, or been absorbed into farmland. A 2016 assessment estimated that around 30 per cent of the Ming wall has disappeared entirely.

Has anyone done it?

Several people have walked long continuous sections. The British traveller William Lindesay walked roughly 2,470 kilometres of the Ming wall in 1987 and has spent decades since on its conservation. Dong Yaohui and two companions completed a widely reported traverse of the Ming wall in the mid-1980s, taking around 500 days.

Nobody has walked the full 21,196 kilometres, and it is not clear that anyone could. Large stretches cross military zones, private farmland, and desert where the wall survives only as a rammed-earth mound. The Han-dynasty sections in Gansu are in some places indistinguishable from natural terrain without survey equipment.

What it was built from, and why

The construction varies enormously along its length, because each section used whatever was available. The Ming sections near Beijing are brick and cut stone on a rubble core. Further west in Gansu, the Han-dynasty wall is rammed earth reinforced with layers of reed and tamarisk — a technique that has survived two thousand years in dry conditions and would have failed in a year in the wet east.

The mortar in the Ming sections is genuinely unusual: analysis has confirmed that lime mortar was mixed with sticky rice, and the amylopectin in the rice starch produces a composite that is more durable and more flexible than lime alone. Sections built with it have survived earthquakes that destroyed conventional masonry nearby.

The persistent claim that the wall is visible from space is false. It is long but only a few metres wide and built of material the same colour as the surrounding ground, which is exactly the wrong combination for orbital visibility. Astronauts have consistently reported being unable to see it unaided.

Your step count, by height

Step length varies with height by more than 25 per cent across the adult range, so the single figure at the top of this page will not be right for everyone. Here is the same distance for a range of heights, using the standard estimate of 0.414 × height.

Your height	Est. step length	Steps for this route
1.55 m	0.64 m	33,016,620
1.65 m	0.68 m	31,034,656
1.75 m	0.72 m	29,236,786
1.85 m	0.77 m	27,671,893
1.95 m	0.81 m	26,266,010

These are estimates. If you want a figure that matches your own gait, our guide to measuring your stride length takes about five minutes.

Common questions

How many steps is the Great Wall of China?

About 28.3 million steps for the full 21,196-kilometre network identified by the 2012 survey, or roughly 11.8 million for the Ming-dynasty wall alone. Steep terrain pushes the realistic figures considerably higher.

How long would it take to walk?

At 20,000 steps a day, every day, the Ming wall would take about 1.6 years and the full network about 3.9 years. Neither is continuously walkable in practice.

Is the Great Wall visible from space?

No. It is far too narrow and too similar in colour to the surrounding terrain. Astronauts have repeatedly confirmed they cannot see it with the naked eye from orbit.

Try your own route

Enter any two places into the step calculator to get a figure for a walk of your own, or browse all twenty routes and eight articles.