Daily Flickr Finds: Chris Bryant’s Xian City Wall

Xi’an is a city which boasts many ancient relics, from the famous Terracotta Warriors, to the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda. As one of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China, the city was fortified with one of the oldest and best preserved Chinese city walls.

Chris Bryant’s photograph of the Xi’an City Walls shows the immense beauty of the scene. An image of still water captures a near perfect reflection of the bridge, and the vegetation looks richly green against the stone walls. Perhaps most telling in this photograph is the river extending to a vanishing point in the distance, as it merges into the horizon with the sky.

A strategic defence for this ancient important city, the walls were made from compressed earth and stands at an impressive 12 metres high. The wall was later encased in bricks, and has a watchtower located at each corner, as can be seen in Chris Bryant’s fantastic photograph.