Ming Nanjing City Wall Of Xi'an City Wall A Comparative Study

City wall is a kind of military installation against invasions from the outside in the ancient times. All through the thousands of years in the Chinese history, Ming Dynasty is the last peak and the most mature stage of city building. Most city walls we see today in China were restored or newly built early that period. This paper takes the city walls of Nanjing and Xi'an, which are relatively broader in scale, better preserved, and under the state preservation, as examples, to discuss the characteristics and the political, economic, and cultural thoughts underlying the Ming city walls.Both the Nanjing and Xi'an walls are the classics in the history of ancient Chinese city-wall building, and were restored in the Ming Dynasty on the basis of the old walls. But due to the different views on the purpose of the cities, the Xi'an city walls were built in a rectangle to symbolize rituals and disciplines, while the Nanjing city walls display a multi-angle outlines with different lengths on different sides in its plane figure, showing a heritage of the traditional Southern flexibility according to the terrain and its features. Secondly, the two cities bore different functions: the Nanjing city was first built out of military purpose, but later ritual needs were gradually taken into consideration in its building, meanwhile, as a Capital, Nanjing had its city walls built on the prosperity and rich labor of South China; in contrast, as the feud of the second son of Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of the Reign, the Xi'an city walls were built more as defense works. Thirdly, the geographic features of the two cities are different: The complex mixture of hills and waters around Nanjing determines that the city must take the highest position of the area to gain a bird's view of its surroundings; whereas Xi'an, locating on the hub of the smooth GuanZhong Plain, found itself fittest for a rectangular city. Other than the differences between the two cities, the common places between them lie in the influences of the traditional cultures on the overall arrangement of the city, the naming of the city gates, etc.Subjectively, the differences of the two cities in geographical features lead to the differences in the defensive facilities such as the base, body, bricks, corners and the bulges of the walls as well as the city moats and the outsider walls. The inward Urn City (a trap yard attached to the city wall) of the Nanjing city walls are unique in their kind, hence more characteristic in comparison with the outward Urn City of the Xi'an city walls...