Lingqu Canal belongs to the years before the Common Era — dated here to c. 214 BCE at Guangxi, China. The date is a scholarly centre of gravity, not a foundation-stone timestamp.
Shi Lu connected the Xiang and Li rivers so Qin could move troops and grain between the Yangtze and Pearl basins.
How it was made
A contour canal with steep locks of an early kind, among the oldest contour canals on Earth.
Why it still counts as a wonder
It never needed a Greek list to be a wonder: the labour, the alignment, or the survival is enough.
The Great Wall is famous. Lingqu is how an empire actually moved.
On dating
BCE in this series means years before the traditional birth of Christ, counted backward. A monument listed as c. 214 BCE may have been founded earlier, rebuilt later, or famous only in one phase. Where ancient writers disagree — as they do for Babylon’s gardens — we say so.
This is story 88 of 100 in The Trend Ledger’s illustrated desk on world wonders raised before the Common Era.