万里长城

萬里長城

wànlǐchángchéng

idiom #40,816

Meanings

1 the Great Wall of China
2 (figuratively) an indispensable defender or bulwark of the state

Characters

li (Chinese mile)

wall; city wall

Examples

万里长城是中国最著名的古代工程。

Wànlǐchángchéng shì Zhōngguó zuì zhùmíng de gǔdài gōngchéng.

The Great Wall is China's most famous ancient engineering project.

人民军队是保卫祖国的万里长城。

Rénmín jūnduì shì bǎowèi zǔguó de wànlǐchángchéng.

The people's army is the Great Wall defending the motherland.

不到长城非好汉,这是一句古老的俗语。

Bú dào Chángchéng fēi hǎohàn, zhè shì yí jù gǔlǎo de súyǔ.

'He who has not reached the Great Wall is no true man' — this is an old saying.

Tips

history

Figurative use comes from 《南史·檀道济传》: when the Liu-Song general Tan Daoji was arrested on false charges, he hurled his headdress to the ground and cried '乃坏汝万里长城!' — 'You are destroying your own Great Wall!' Thereafter 万里长城 became shorthand for an irreplaceable defender of the state.

culture

Each character's literal numerics — 万 (ten thousand) 里 (Chinese li, about half a km) — yield a length that's hyperbolic: the actual wall is far longer than 10,000 li, the number simply means 'countless'.

Stroke Order

万 wàn

里 lǐ

长 cháng

城 chéng