A married couple in northwest China has transformed a decade-long passion project into a museum built on more than 100,000 photos documenting China’s Great Wall. What began as weekend excursions has grown into a public space that draws researchers and heritage enthusiasts from across the country.
The museum, located in Changcheng Village in Yanchi County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, sits in a quiet courtyard constructed with borrowed funds and a deep commitment to preserving the wall’s legacy. The project stems from years of photographing sections of China’s Great Wall, often at sunrise and sunset, capturing its fading presence across remote landscapes.
Preserving history through artifacts and archives
Inside, the museum displays fragments of porcelain, ancient tools, and Ming-era bricks recovered from villagers who once used them for everyday construction. Shelves are lined with more than 2,000 local chronicles collected over years of travel. Many of these items were at risk of disappearing, either lost to time or reused without knowledge of their historical value.
Gao Wandong, a former civil servant, and his wife Chen Jing, a schoolteacher, spent over ten years documenting the wall across Yanchi County, where it stretches 259 kilometers (161 miles) through deserts and hills. Their work took them deep into unmarked territory, often guided by faded maps or directions passed down through villagers.
Chen began with a borrowed camera but later trained herself in drone operation, image processing, and layout design. The couple often traveled over 100 kilometers (62 miles) in a single day to locate a single beacon tower, facing rough terrain, sandstorms, and food shortages, and stayed on site for hours to photograph the wall under natural light.
Photos bring China’s Great Wall to life
The couple’s efforts gained urgency in 2014 when Yanchi County launched a protection initiative allowing individuals to take stewardship of historic sites. Gao and Chen contributed 5,000 yuan ($716) to adopt a Ming-era beacon tower and pledged to document every remaining section of the wall in the region within five to six years.
In 2019, they published Illustrated Yanchi Great Wall, a curated collection of six hundred photographs selected from their archive. The book serves as a visual record of the region’s ancient watchtowers, walls, and quiet traces of life.
Gao now serves as vice president of the local Great Wall protection association. He says local awareness has improved, and intentional damage has significantly declined. Chen added that, until restoration methods can fully preserve what remains, the best approach is to prevent further harm. She hopes the wall will continue to age with respect and care.
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