How successful was the Great Wall of China?

by cneiger

A world wonder, and a sight to see no doubt; at the time, did it serve its purpose?

DanKensington

It depends on how we're defining 'successful'. As EnclavedMicrostate says in their compilation post, "Well, yes, but actually no, but also yes?" More can always be said on the matter, of course, so further posts are always welcome; however, as "was the Great Wall successful/a failure" is one of the more common questions about it, we do have several previous posts on the matter: