Walls



The Walls were built more than a century ago, when humanity was brought to the edge of extinction at the hand of the Titans. In response to this looming threat, the humans made huge Walls to protect their last stronghold. The Walls reach about 50 meters in height and reach four or five times a human's height below the ground, and is rumored to be as strong as bedrock. However, the Female Titan was able to damage them when she attempted to climb over it, and the Beast Titan was able to remove pieces of Wall Rose and throw them. It was discovered by a miner with twenty years of experience -- who attempted to dig under Wall Rose to reach Wall Sina -- that after digging to the bottom, he found that the ground below them was made of the same material as the Wall. They also seem to extend surrounding human territory underground.

The Walls are too long to be guarded in their entirety. The tops of the Walls are lined with cannons, which can fire on approaching Titans, even though they are not particularly effective due to the Titan's regeneration abilities. To account for this, each one has four towns on their periphery. As Titans are drawn towards large concentrations of people, humanity can focus its defenses at these towns and not the rest of the Wall. These towns are where the poorer citizens of humanity live, since they are at greater risk of a Titan invasion.

Few people know about the Titans within the Walls, or that they were created from Titans. The Survey Corps learned of their existence when the Female Titan damaged the surface of Wall Sina, exposing the face of a huge Titan. Pastor Nick, a foremost member of a cult which considers the Walls to be holy, knew of the Titans within them, but would reveal no more under the interrogation of Hange Zoë. It is unknown how commonplace this knowledge is within the Wall Cult.

The distance from Wall Maria to Wall Rose is about 100 km, the distance from Wall Rose to Wall Sina is about 130 km, and the radius of Wall Sina is about 250 km. Assuming the walls to be perfect circles, this would make the total area inside the walls 723,823 km roughly twice the size of real world Germany.

Trivia

 * Titans primarily targeted the southern region, even before the loss of Wall Maria. As such, they are considered the most dangerous and least desirable places to live.
 * It is unknown if the 3 other districts outside Wall Maria, aside from Shiganshina, survived the Titan invasion. However, it is possible they're still alive after years of isolation.
 * The northern districts are considered the most desirable region, due to minimal Titan activity. However, the weather is brutally cold and makes life for residents very difficult. Hajime Isayama suggested they may have hot springs to make up for the harsh weather.
 * Isayama has described the region as relatively cold, rarely exceeding degrees even on the hottest summer days.
 * 'Rose' was the USSR's secret codename plan to build the Berlin Wall, which was approved by Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev. Two months before it's construction began on Sunday 13th, 1961, the phrase 'No one intends to set up a wall!' was stated by GDR Chairman Walter Ulbricht, who had also proposed the idea to Khruschev and the government of Eastern Germany. Ulbricht had played a key role in bringing a Stalinized political one party system to Eastern Germany (officially known as the German Democratic Republic after October 7th 1949) and became the country's effective dictator from 1957 through 1973. The Berlin Wall's official name was the 'Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart', whose propaganda purpose was to protect Eastern Berlin from Western fascists', whose true and well known purpose was to keep people from fleeing the Soviet states to the West. The wall would not fall until 1989, shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, leading to the reunification of both Berlin and Germany's Western and Eastern halves under the government of West Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany).