Trump’s border wall has remained one of the most contentious issues in US politics. After months of congressional setbacks, the president has finally started to build the physical barrier on the US southern border. Work on the wall started in southern Arizona. However, such walls are not new. In fact, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the idea of building walls to separate entire cities or countries has gained momentum around the world. Despite this, even though walls are built as a form of security, they rarely work. After all, people always seem to find ways to cross them regardless of how sophisticated they may be.
Well, in this post we look at some of the major walls around the world and we start off with the Berlin wall. This is probably one of the most important walls historically in our analysis simply because it was built during a time of intense ideological differences around the world. The Berlin Wall literally divided the city of Berlin into two. It was 27 miles long and was primarily put up to stop people from moving east to west. The wall came down in 1989 but its remnants are still visible in the German capital.
The second significant wall in our list is found in the Peruvian capital of Lima. The wall is actually known as the “Wall of Shame” and it divides a total of four neighborhoods in the city. Perhaps most significantly, the wall is used as a divider between the wealthier residents of the city and the poor. Lima’s wall is 10 feet high and six miles long. It is also fully covered by barbed wire.
The city of Homs is also not a stranger to walls but the phenomenon is a little bit more recent. During the country’s civil war, Homs was divided in “loyal” and “disloyal” areas. Neighborhoods that supported the government were referred to as loyal while those that sided with the resistance movement were labeled “disloyal.”
The city of Nicosia in Cyprus also has a wall of its own. But instead of concrete and steel, this one is built mostly with sandbags and barrels filled with dirt. The wall is 120 miles long and even though it’s mostly found in the city, it runs the entire length of Cyprus. On one side of the wall you will find Christian Orthodox Greeks while on the other you will find Muslim Turkish people.
North Africa also makes it to our list with probably one of the oldest walls in the world. The North African nation of Morocco has separated itself from Western Sahara using an old wall. The barrier was built in 1980 and is largely made using sand and barbed wire.
Finally, it is important to remember that there is a wall between the US and Mexico. Even though Trump is promising to build a barrier across the entire length of the border, some form of fencing has already existed in some parts. The US-Mexico border is about 2,000 miles long. 700 miles of it already have some type of barrier installed as we speak.
