Kaiping Diaolou and Villages

Overview

About

The diaolou, fortified towers, stand in the countryside of Kaiping in Guangdong; 1,833 survive. On 28 June 2007 the World Heritage Committee, meeting in Christchurch, New Zealand, inscribed Kaiping Diaolou and Villages as a World Heritage Site. The four nominated areas are Sanmenli village in Chikan, Zili village and the Fang clan watchtower in Tangkou, Jinjiangli village in Xiangang, and the Majianglong villages in Baihe.

Towers have been built in Kaiping since the Ming dynasty against floods and bandits, but they were few until the Opium War.

Between 1900 and 1931 1,648 towers were built, 89.9% of the total, 940 of them in 1921–31 alone. Bandits were numerous and the early Republic was a time of constant warfare and robbery: between 1912 and 1926 schools were raided eight times and over a hundred teachers and pupils kidnapped, so towers that guarded against both flood and bandits appealed to overseas Chinese families, who built more than 3,000 at the peak.

In the 1940s, as the United States and Canada relaxed immigration restrictions, relatives emigrated to join their families and tower building dwindled and stopped. The last, Jianlu in Xintang village, Chikan, dates from 1949; only seven were built between 1943 and 1949.

Ruishi Lou, called the finest tower in Kaiping, is of concrete and combines Roman, Byzantine and Baroque elements; the towers typically mix Chinese house forms with Greek, Roman and Islamic styles.

By function there are communal towers (473 survive), residential towers (1,149) and watchtowers (221); by material, stone (10), rammed earth (100), brick (249) and concrete (1,474).

Travel tips

Getting there: long-distance buses run from Guangzhou and Shenzhen to Kaiping, and Kaiping South station on the Shenzhen–Maoming railway has fast trains. The diaolou are spread over villages in several towns, some without bus links; from Kaiping a car or hired driver is easiest.

Zili village: in Tangkou town, with towers and villas among rice fields and ponds; the most visited site. Li Garden nearby is an overseas Chinese family's house and garden.

Majianglong: in Baihe town, a group of villages backed by bamboo groves with towers among the trees.

Jinjiangli: in Xiangang town, with Ruishi Lou; farther from the city.

Chikan old town: an arcaded street on the Tan River, recently redeveloped as a ticketed resort area; it fits well with a visit to the towers.

Time: one or two days for the main sites.

Season: autumn and winter are most comfortable; in spring and summer the rice fields are green, but summer is hot and wet, with typhoons.

Caution: people still live in the villages; do not enter towers or houses that are not open to visitors.

Map

Photo credits: Watchtowers in Zili Village: xiquinhosilva (CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)

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