城(chéng)

Wall

"长城”的“城”字指“城墙‘。城墙是用土做的，所以”城“、”墙“两个字都有”土“。现在我们说城市，是因为过去每一座城市都有自己的城墙。

(cháng chéng de chéng zì zhǐ chéng qiáng. chéng qiáng shì yòng tǔ zuò de, suǒ yǐ chéng, qiáng liǎng gè zì dōu yǒu tǔ. xiàn zài wǒ men shuō chéng shì, běi jīng chéng, shì yīn wéi guò qù měi yí zuò chéng shì dōu yǒu zì jǐ de chéng qiáng.)

The character cheng in changcheng (The Great Wall) means city wall. China’s ancient city walls were made of soil. Therefore, the characters cheng and qiang both contain the radical of tu (soil or earth). Today, we use the term chengshi (city), because each Chinese city used to be surrounded by a wall.