The Great Wall of China with Google Earth Tours

Tour The Great Wall of China with Google Earth Tours

Make a virtual field trip to one of the world’s most famous landmarks; The Great Wall of China. You will be using Google Earth to watch a pre-recorded tour of the ancient wall located along a 13,000 mile stretch of northern China. Learn about its features, history, interesting facts, and much more. The trip lasts for 5 minutes and 41 seconds.

The product includes a document of about 25 talking points and interesting facts about the enormous wall.

The tour is also accompanied by a PDF file that describes what you are seeing based on the corresponding minutes in the video. This is so you can pause the tour at the given time stamp and let the class know what they are looking at.

For example the document says at, “2:10 – 2:23 – After bouncing away from the Forbidden City, the camera ends up in the mountains just beyond the northern edges of Beijing. It pauses to look down upon a section of the wall called the Metianyu Great Wall.

a. The Metianyu Great Wall was built around 550 CE and is about 3.4 miles long.

b. It’s one of the best known and well-maintained parts of the wall.

c. It’s also famous for its 23 guard towers, which you’re about to see.

d. This view shows the southern end of Metianyu Great Wall. The three guard towers leading up to the Big Corner Tower is actually a non-tourist area. The Big Corner Tower is a little off in the distance where three sections of the wall meet. It is our next stop.”

The tour begins with a view of planet Earth from outer space. You are then brought in to various locations to see it from a variety of different viewpoints. The angles and sites are chosen so the students can get a good idea of the wall’s setting and it’s positioning in relation to China. Finally, you are taken back out to a long shot of China.

To watch, all you have to do is click on the file, Google Earth will open and you will be taken on a short trip to the World Heritage site. * Your computer must have Google Earth to watch these tours.

Feel free to visit some other famous landmarks in the Americas.

1. The Golden Gate Bridge (3:29)

2. Chichen Itza (5:38)

3. Niagara Falls (2:10)

4. Panama Canal (3:02)

5. Statue of Liberty (2:07)

6. Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri (1:06)

7. Mount Rushmore (3:02)

8. Machu Picchu (5:07)

9. Freedom Tower, aka One World Trade Center

(3:54)

Here are some European landmarks.

1. Stonehenge (3:29)

2. The Acropolis (5:38)

3. The Colosseum

4. The Leaning Tower of Pisa (3:28)

5. The Eiffel Tower (3:15)

6. Big Ben (5:12)

7. Notre Dame of Paris (4:20)

Tour some African sites.

1. The Egyptian Pyramids and the Great Sphinx of Giza (3:15)

Go on an outing to these Asian destinations.

1. The Great Wall of China (5:41)

These tours work great with social studies lessons about famous landmarks, maps, cardinal directions, etc.

Here are a few links to some helpful tutorials on how to use Google Earth.

How to Use Google Earth For Beginners – by Rick Castellini on YouTube

Beginner Google Earth Tutorial Videos by Google

Beginner’s Guide to Using Google Earth – by The Land Brothers

Please feel free to email me directly at r_nyg@yahoo.com if you need any assistance.

Check out all of my Google Earth Tours on this Pinterest board.

The cover photo is by panayota and is under a CC0 Creative Commons license. The photo can be found on Pixabay @ https://pixabay.com/en/the-great-wall-china-badaling-2190047/

Map Data:

Map Data:

© 2018 Basarsoft

© SKEnergy

© Zenrin

Image © 2018 CNES / Airbus

Google, Image Landsat / Copernicus

Data SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO

Image IBCAO

Image U.S. Geological Survey

Image © 2018 Digital Globe

© Google

US Department of State Geographer

© 2009 GeoBasis – DE/BKG