Printable ScholarGreat Wall of China Map
A free printable map of the Great Wall of China drawn on real terrain, with the line of the Ming wall taken from OpenStreetMap, from Jiayu Pass in the western desert to Shanhai Pass on the sea. It shows Beijing, Badaling, Mutianyu, the Yellow River and the Gobi Desert, and comes in color, black and white, and blank.
Choose your version
Black and white, color or blank.
All three are free PDFs sized for US Letter paper.
Black and white
Everything named on a plain outline map with no terrain. No color ink needed.
downloadBlack and white PDF
Color
The wall, passes, cities, rivers and deserts named, on shaded relief.
downloadColor PDF
Blank
The black-and-white map with its routes and markers but no names, for labeling practice.
downloadBlank PDFWhere the Great Wall runs
The Great Wall is not one wall but many, built and rebuilt over about 2,000 years to guard the farmland of northern China from the horse-riding peoples of the steppe to the north. The first walls went up in the 600s BC. After Qin Shi Huang united China in 221 BC he joined several of them together, and the Han dynasty pushed walls west along the Hexi Corridor. Most of those early walls were made of rammed earth, and little of them is left. The wall most people picture today was built by the Ming dynasty, from 1368 to 1644, much of it in brick and stone, with watchtowers and fortified passes. A survey by the Chinese government measured the Ming wall at about 8,850 km (5,500 miles). It runs from Jiayu Pass in the Gobi Desert in the west, across the Yellow River and the Loess Plateau, through the mountains north of Beijing, to Shanhai Pass, where it meets the Bohai Sea, and on into Liaodong. North of Beijing the wall doubles back on itself in several lines to protect the capital, which is why Badaling and Mutianyu, the sections most visitors see, are so close to the city.
On the map
- Jiayu Pass: the western end of the Ming wall, in the Gobi Desert
- Shanhai Pass: where the wall meets the sea, called the First Pass Under Heaven
- Badaling: the most visited section, northwest of Beijing
- Mutianyu: a restored section with watchtowers, northeast of Beijing
- Datong and Yulin: garrison cities near the wall
- Hushan: the far eastern end of the Ming wall, on the Yalu River
Find it on the map
- The wall crossing the great bend of the Yellow River
- The double lines of wall that guard Beijing
- The Gobi Desert and the Mongolian Plateau beyond the wall
The wall line is drawn from OpenStreetMap, where volunteers have mapped the wall section by section (ODbL). Walls built before the Ming that are mapped there under the same name, such as the Qi wall in Shandong, the Han walls west of Jiayu Pass and the old walls on the Yin Mountains, are left out, though a few older sections may remain. Gaps are places where the wall has not been mapped or where little of it survives. Coastlines and rivers are shown as they are today.
Frequently asked questions
How long is the Great Wall of China?
The Ming wall, the one shown here, is about 8,850 km (5,500 miles) long by a Chinese government survey. Counting every wall built by every dynasty, the survey found about 21,000 km (13,000 miles).
Where does the Great Wall start and end?
The Ming wall runs from Jiayu Pass in Gansu province in the west to Shanhai Pass on the Bohai Sea, and its last sections reach Hushan on the Yalu River, on the border with North Korea.
Who built the Great Wall?
Many Chinese states and dynasties over about 2,000 years. Qin Shi Huang joined earlier walls together after 221 BC, but most of the wall standing today was built by the Ming dynasty between 1368 and 1644, by soldiers, farmers and convicts.