Yanqing gives its Great Wall section a face-lift and creates cultural belt

The district is planning to build the cultural belt focusing on cultural heritage protection, environment restoration, industry development and preserving and protecting local villages.

"We have used high-tech equipment in our protection work, such as a big data management system, 3D modeling based on footage shot from unmanned drones and satellite monitoring," Liu said.

"Local villages and inns along the Great Wall are part of the local culture and so it is important to protect them," he said.

The Great Wall itself has also played an important role in terms of ecological protection as well as being a defensive barrier throughout its history. "In the early days after 1949, the forest coverage rate of Yanqing was less than 7 percent, but now it has increased to 58.7 percent over the past 70 years due to our environmental efforts," Huang said.

Manuel Rodriguez, a journalist from Diario Extra, a newspaper in Costa Rica, said the Great Wall is the symbol of China's long history and culture, and always No 1 on the list of places to visit in China.

"This is my first time in China," Rodriguez said. "I imagined what it would be like to climb the Great Wall, and it turned out to be quite unexpected."

Maria Rebollo, a journalist from the Argentine newspaper Ambito Financiero, said the eastern section in Yanqing is a place that feels closer to the history of the Great Wall.

"I have been to the scenic area of the attraction before, but this section is quite different," Rebollo said.

"It is more original and is good for exploration."