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The Southern Great Wall is a lesser-known counterpart to the wall structures more commonly associated with northern China, built in the mid-sixteenth century as part of the broader Ming-dynasty wall-building program. Construction began in 1554, and the fortification runs for roughly 190 kilometers through the hills of what is now Fenghuang County in Hunan province, stretching from a pass on the border with Tongren in the south to a garrison post near Jishou in the north.

Unlike the massive stone ramparts of the wall sections built to hold back nomadic forces along China's northern frontier, the Southern Great Wall was constructed by Ming authorities specifically to control and separate the region's southern ethnic minority communities, part of a broader effort to suppress resistance and stabilize what officials of the time called the Miao frontier. Along its route, the wall incorporates a series of watchtowers, artillery platforms, blockhouses, and garrison gates originally built for troop deployment and defense, many of which survive in varying states of preservation and can be visited today as sections of restored or partially restored wall.

Because the wall runs through Fenghuang County itself, sections of it are accessible as a day trip from the old town, offering a very different kind of historic sightseeing from the riverside streets and stilted houses at the town's center: open hillside walking, long sightlines over the surrounding countryside, and a more somber sense of the region's history of conflict between Ming authorities and local ethnic communities. Visitors interested in Chinese military architecture, or simply looking for a scenic walk outside the old town, often pair a Southern Great Wall visit with other rural attractions on Fenghuang's outskirts.