Shaanxi · A City Wall You Can Ride All the Way Round
Xi’an City Wall and Stele Forest (西安城墙 · 碑林)
Almost every Chinese city pulled its wall down. Xi’an kept the whole circuit, about fourteen kilometres of it, and you can cycle round the top in under two hours.
Quick Facts
The Short Version
| What it is | The complete Ming city wall of Xi’an, with the Stele Forest museum inside the old city ticketed as part of the same scenic area |
|---|---|
| Where | Around the old city of Xi’an, Shaanxi. The wall encloses the central district |
| The circuit | About 13.7 km around, roughly 12 m high, and wide enough on top for vehicles. Bicycles are hired at the gates |
| When | Built in the 1370s under the first Ming emperor, on the line of the Tang imperial city wall that preceded it |
| The other half | The Stele Forest was founded in 1087 to house a set of Confucian classics carved in stone in the 830s. It now holds several thousand inscribed stones |
| Booking | Separate tickets for the wall and the museum. Buy at the gate. Bicycle hire is charged by time |
| Time needed | Two hours to cycle the wall. Two more for the Stele Forest, properly |
| Language | Good English on the wall. Thin and technical in the Stele Forest |
Why Go
The One That Was Not Demolished
1. Completeness is the point
Walled cities were the norm in China and almost all of those walls came down in the twentieth century, for traffic, for building material, and because they stood for something the period wanted to be past. Beijing’s went. Nanjing’s survives in long stretches. Xi’an’s survives as a closed loop, and that is what makes it worth a morning rather than a photograph.
The top is wide, flat and continuous, with the moat and a ring park on the outside and the old city on the inside. Hiring a bicycle at one of the gates and riding the whole circuit takes about ninety minutes at a slow pace, and it is the clearest way anywhere in China to understand what a walled city actually was: a defined interior with a hard edge and a controlled number of ways through.
2. The stones inside
The Stele Forest is a different proposition and a harder one. It began in 1087 as a home for the Kaicheng Stone Classics, a set of Confucian texts carved onto more than a hundred stone slabs in the 830s so that there would be an authoritative version that could not drift through copying. Around that core it accumulated inscriptions, calligraphy and monuments over the following nine centuries.
One stone in it matters disproportionately to foreign visitors. The Nestorian Stele, set up in 781 and dug up in the 1620s, records in Chinese and Syriac the arrival of the Church of the East in China in 635 and its treatment under the Tang. It is the primary evidence for Christianity in Tang China and it was famous in Europe within decades of its rediscovery. It stands in the first hall and it is very easy to walk past.
The catch. The Stele Forest is dense, text-heavy and explained thinly in English. Without a guide or preparation it is a room of grey stones with Chinese labels, and most foreign visitors give it twenty minutes and leave. That is a waste of one of the more significant collections in the country.
Orientation
Where to Start, and Which Direction
The South Gate is the main entrance and the busiest. The other three main gates also have access and bicycle hire, and starting at one of them rather than the south puts the crowded stretch behind you early. Bicycles must be returned to the gate you hired from, so plan a full lap rather than a one-way ride.
The Stele Forest is inside the old city, a short walk in from the south-east stretch of the wall. Doing the wall first and the museum after works: the museum is indoors and sitting down is welcome by then.
Practical
Things Worth Knowing
Ride, do not walk
Fourteen kilometres on foot on a hard surface with no shade is a bad afternoon. A bicycle turns the same circuit into the best ninety minutes in the city.
Tandem bikes are a trap
They are hired out cheerfully and they handle badly on a surface with expansion joints every few metres. Two singles cost about the same.
Find the Nestorian Stele deliberately
It is in the first hall of the Stele Forest and it is not signposted as the thing it is. Ask, or look for the stone with a cross in the ornament at the top.
Evening is better in summer
The wall is lit and open into the evening and the surface holds heat all afternoon. Riding at seven is a different experience from riding at two.
Timing
When to Go
| Season | The case for | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| September to November | The best riding weather of the year and the clearest air | The first week of October is the national holiday and the wall is full |
| March to May | Mild, with blossom in the ring park below the wall | Dust and haze are common in spring |
| June to August | Long evenings and the wall lit after dark, which suits a late ride | Very hot and completely shadeless on top during the day |
| December to February | Quiet, and the structure of the wall reads better without leaves on the trees | Cold and exposed. Bicycle hire continues but is unpleasant in wind |
Context
Why This Wall Is Where It Is
Tang Chang’an was several times larger than the walled city you see now. When the Tang ended the city contracted sharply, and the Ming wall built in the 1370s enclosed only the area of the former imperial city, a fraction of the Tang plan. So the wall is not the boundary of the great Tang capital; it is the boundary of what was left of it six centuries later.
That is worth knowing before visiting the Tang sites outside it, because the relationship between them stops making sense otherwise. Daming Palace, the main Tang palace complex, sits well outside this wall to the north, and the Big Wild Goose Pagoda well outside it to the south. Both were inside Tang Chang’an.
The wall was repaired repeatedly under the Qing and restored through the late twentieth century, including closing the last gaps in the circuit in the 1980s. It is therefore Ming in line and fabric with a good deal of modern work in it, which is the usual condition of anything this size that is still in use.
Nearby
Other Stops on the Same Trip
Spot · 6 km north
Daming Palace (大明宫)
The excavated footprint of the main Tang palace complex, laid out as an archaeological park. Enormous, and almost entirely foundations.
Spot · 30 km east
Huaqing Palace (华清池)
Hot springs at the foot of Li Mountain with the excavated Tang bathing pools, on the Terracotta Army road.
Spot · 35 km east
Terracotta Army (秦始皇兵马俑)
The buried army of the first Qin emperor in three excavated pits.
Where to Base
Xi’an (西安)
The wall defines the old city and almost everything inside it is walkable: the Bell and Drum towers, the Muslim quarter behind them, and the Stele Forest in the south-east. That makes a day without transport, which is rare in a Chinese city of this size.
Three days is the working minimum for Xi’an: one for the Terracotta Army and Huaqing out east, one for the old city and the wall, one for the Tang layer north and south of it.
Experiences
What You Can Actually Do Here
On the wall · 90 min
Cycle the full circuit
Fourteen kilometres on top of a continuous Ming wall, with the moat outside and the old city inside the whole way.
Museum · 2 hr
The Stele Forest, properly
The Kaicheng Stone Classics, nine centuries of calligraphy, and the Nestorian Stele in the first hall.
Evening · 1 hr
The wall after dark
Lit, quieter and much cooler in summer, with the old city below on one side and the ring park on the other.
Worth half a day, and the bicycle is not optional. Ride the circuit in the morning or the evening, then spend two hours in the Stele Forest with someone who can read it. If you only have one afternoon in the old city, the wall alone still justifies it; the museum without preparation does not.
Plan a Xi’an Route Around the Old City
Tell us your dates and what you are after, and our local team will build the route: the full wall circuit by bicycle, the Stele Forest with someone who can read the stones, and the Tang sites outside the wall on the days either side.