Now when we say Great Wall we all know that it refers to the Great Wall of China, but do you know it has been called in different ways in the past.

The collection of walls known today as the Great Wall of China was referred by a number of different names. The current English name evolved from enthusiastic accounts of "the Chinese wall" from early European travelers; by the end of the 19th century "the Great Wall of China" became the name of the walls. In Chinese, they are most commonly known as changcheng (长城), meaning "long wall". The term can be found in the Records of the Grand Historian (1st century BC), where it referred to the walls built by the Warring States, and most particularly, the walls of Qin Shi Huang. The notion of it being "ten thousand li" long (figuratively meaning "endless"), as reflected in the full Chinese name of the Great Wall in modern times (万里长城 Wanli Changcheng), also comes from the Records, though the words "Wanli Changcheng" were rarely used together in pre-modern times—a rare example being the Book of Song written in 493, where it quotes the frontier general Tan Daoji.

Historically, the dynasties after Qin avoided using the term changcheng to refer to their own "Great Walls", as the term was said to evoke imagery of Qin's tyranny. Instead, historical records indicate the use of various terms such as "frontier" (塞 sai), "rampart" (垣 yuan),"barrier" (障 zhang), "outer fortresses" (外堡 waibao), and "border wall" (边墙 bianqiang),in addition to poetic and folk names like "purple frontier" (紫塞 zisai) and "earth dragon" (地龙 dilong). Only in modern times did changcheng become the catch-all term to refer to the long border walls regardless of location or dynastic origin, equivalent to the Western term "Great Wall".

Go for Great Wall is one of the must-do things during your Beijing tour.