Qufu's Ming Dynasty city walls survive largely intact — a roughly square perimeter about 1.5 kilometres on a side, with four gates and the most complete circuit of medieval Chinese city walls in Shandong. The walls are 8–10 metres high and were built in 1522 specifically to enclose and protect the Kong family estates; the city exists, in a sense, to be a container for the Confucian heritage.
Walking the top of the walls provides an excellent overview of the city layout — the Temple of Confucius and Kong Family Mansion visible to the north, the residential streets of the old city extending in all directions, the dense green of the surrounding agricultural land beyond the walls. A full circuit of the walls takes about an hour. The gates are well preserved and the stone ramps up to the wall surface are accessible from multiple points.