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Here's How Long The U.S.-Mexico Border Wall Would Need To Be

It's about four or five days of driving time.

It looks like President Donald Trump's promised border wall between the U.S. and Mexico might actually be happening.

On Wednesday, the Republican leader signed an executive order to begin construction. But what Trump might not realize is just how huge that wall is going to be.

The Mexico-U.S. border is 3,200-kilometres long.

In October 2016, documentary filmmaker Josh Begley released a short film showing just how massive a wall would be.

"Best Of Luck With The Wall" is stitched together using more than 200,000 satellite images downloaded from Google Maps.

The video zips along the border, showcasing rocky streams, desert, mountains, forests and cities spanning the region from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.

"For all the talk of 'securing the border' and 'building a wall,' there is surprisingly little visual material that conveys just how vast this stretch of space is," Begley wrote for Intercept.

While some parts of the border are fenced, in other parts the border follows natural terrain like the Rio Grande river — where some U.S. residents technically live just south of the border.

Begley says that making the film only gives a small insight into the lives of millions who live on either side of the border.

"This film frames the entire southern border in six minutes. You can never see the entire southern border in six minutes," the director told Field of Vision, the documentary group that produced the short film.

"But even in that small [timeframe], perhaps it’s more than what one sees when reading a headline about building a wall."

If the wall is built, it could be an expensive endeavour. Researchers at MIT estimated it could cost between US$27 and $40 billion — far from Trump's estimate of US$8 billion.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has asserted that his country will not pay for the wall. On Thursday, the White House proposed implementing a 20 per cent import tax to fund the construction, according to The New York Times.

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