The Old Dragon’s Head: Where Wall Meets Sea

Read the location page and related story. The image of a dragon is a storytelling metaphor; describe the masonry and coast using observations from the material.

Historical Background Perched at the northeastern edge of the North China Plain, the Shanhaiguan (Old Dragon Head) stands as the most dramatic eastern terminus of the Great Wall. Built in 1381 during the early Ming Dynasty, this fortress complex marks the precise point where the wall plunges into the Bohai Sea. The founder of the pass was General Xu Da,…

The Setting Few works of human hands have ever been tied so intimately to geography as the Great Wall of China. To understand why the wall ends where it does—swallowed by the ocean—you must travel to the far eastern edge of its Ming-era construction, where the Yan Mountains rush down to meet the Bohai Sea. Here, along a narrow coastal…

• As proof that a living dragon built the wall
• As a precise engineering measurement
• As a storytelling image to distinguish from physical evidence

Sketch how the wall and coast are presented on the page. Write one descriptive sentence about visible features and a separate sentence using a dragon metaphor. Label the second sentence as creative storytelling.